A Different Path
by Exarikun
Summary: - ON HOLD - Starts at the end of Year 5. An accident happens, and Harry's in the middle of it. But what happens afterwards? Where has he been all summer and how has he changed? Xover, but not telling with what, so read and find out.
1. Chapter 1

A Different Path 

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything that comes with it. This is not meant to make money, only for entertainment. This disclaimer goes for the entire story, so I won't repeat it after this initial chapter.

Well then. I'd have to say that this is my first HP fic. I intended to make it part of my Avatar of Chaos, but I found that it focused to much on Harry Potter and not enough on Ranma, so I made it a separate fic. I have no idea how long this will become, but knowing myself, if I want to finish it, I can't make it too long. I'm great with initial ideas, but I suck in follow-up. It's not that I mean it like that, it's just that after the first couple of chapters, I come across a piece in the story that I didn't calculate in and I have no idea how to write. I try to fill those gaps, but it doesn't always work. Ah well, who knows, maybe this'll be my first ever completed fic.

A warning for anyone who intends to read this. There will be deaths in this fic as well as violence, both verbal as physical. Relationships, I have no idea about. If any, they'll be superficial at best. I'm not much on the emotional writing. Well, positive emotions that is. BTW, this'll be a crossover. I'm not saying with what though.

This fic starts at the end of year 5, right after Harry's finished saying goodbye to his friends. So much for introductions, lets get this rolling.

------

**A Different Path**

_Chapter 1 _

It seemed to Harry that getting his relatives threatened by Moody had it's merits. Uncle Vernon even went so far as to haul his trunk in the back of the car. Dudley didn't dare say a word to Harry, lest something bad would happen to him. And Aunt Petunia smiled. Or rather, she tried to. It was one of those forced smiles that didn't even reach her shoes, much less her eyes and weren't likely to fool anyone. Still, she kept silent, so Harry supposed that that was something at least. Hedwig didn't like the car, so Harry decided to let her fly home. She liked that so much more anyway.

"See you it a little while, Hedwig." He said as the snowy owl got out of the cage. Said snowy owl turned to Harry and nipped his finger affectionately before spreading her wings and taking off.

"Alright, boy, get in the car so we can go home." Uncle Vernon said in a forced calm voice. Harry silently got in the car and waited for everyone else to get in so they could leave. Uncle Vernon even put on the radio, something he never did otherwise. With one last look from Harry at the train station, they were underway.

Nobody said anything, so the only sound that was heard was the radio playing and the quiet sounds of cars driving around them. That was fine with Harry. He didn't think he could've handled a round of accusations and name calling. He was still grieving for Sirius. The prophecy also took up a big portion of his thoughts. Which brought his thoughts back to Dumbledore and Snape. And his anger with both of them. Anger aimed at Dumbledore for hiding the reason for his need to learn Occlumency and at Snape for being a worthless teacher at it, just as he was with potions. After a little while, the rhythmical sound of the radio and the swaying of the car made Harry sleepy, so he closed his eyes and dozed off. When the other occupants of the car noticed this, tension drained away. The Dursleys never liked magic. More likely that they hated it with a passion. Maybe not Dudley, he just liked to bully his freaky cousin. But the elder Dursleys hated it. Thought it was abnormal. An aberration. Still, they couldn't do anything against it. However, soon the boy would be of age in his world, and then they wouldn't need to see him ever again. They couldn't know that their wish would be fulfilled much sooner.

The way home was a rather long one. After some time, Dudley had nodded off as well and Petunia wasn't far behind. Vernon was still awake, but the tediousness of the trip was getting to him. Coupled with the fact that he was replaying the meeting with the freaky-eyed weirdo in his mind, made it so that he wasn't really paying attention to the road. Had he done so, events might have run a completely different course, but alas, they ran as they did.

Coming from the opposite direction was a gasoline truck. It's driver had taken over a shift from a friend who had fallen ill at the last moment. Having made a run just before that himself, and with no other drivers that could take over in a pinch, this meant that the man had not slept in over 38 hours. He too was falling victim to the tediousness of the boring road he was driving. He could hardly keep his eyes open. He knew there was a gas station not far from where he was though, so he promised himself he'd stop there and take a short nap. Then, with some coffee, he'd be good enough to continue driving.

A slow curve was coming up and Vernon began his turn. Something in the river on his left side momentarily caught his attention however. And it the few seconds that he took his eyes off the road to see what had caught his attention, he didn't see the truck, whose driver had fallen asleep despite his best effort to remain awake, barreling right at him. When he finally did notice, it was far too late to do anything.

The truck clipped the car and both vehicles continued in the direction of the river. The car was spinning head over heels in the general direction of it while the truck headed straight for one of the trees that stood next to the river. With a mighty crash, truck met tree and the cockpit of the truck was folded inwards as if it were made of tin foil. The tree itself was uprooted, and lifted the truck in the air, causing it to fall over on it's side, cracking the tank containing thousands of liters gasoline. It stopped before falling into the river itself, leaving a trail of gasoline behind and leaking more of the stuff by the second.

The Dursleys car came to a stop a little distance away from the truck. It was on it's roof. In it, the occupants were in a bad condition. Petunia had hit her head very hard in the initial collision and was now bleeding profusely from the wound. She wasn't moving and was getting pale from the blood loss. Vernon's face was littered with lacerations from his side window that had shattered from all the tumbling the car had done. One of his arms was broken and bent at an extreme angle. He too was unconscious. Dudley was, more or less, unharmed. He was in the back of the car and he'd worn his seatbelt, though it had been stretched to its limits to contain the whale-like body size. He was a bit banged up, but other than some scrapes and bruises, he was fine. Harry however, wasn't.

Much like his uncle, he'd been pelted by glass. Problem was, some yahoo had banged against that door about a week before they went to pick up Harry. Being the man that he was, Vernon had a new door installed instead of repairing the damage done to the old one. However, the glass from that door was a different kind than the rest of the glass in the car. It wasn't shatterproof. It was normal glass, if somewhat re enforced. Not that the shatter proofing did the other glass in the car much good, seeing as it was shredded to pieces. Still, the individual small pieces of glass were kept together because of the proofing. But in Harry's case, the window just broke. In both large and small pieces. And one of these large pieces had pierced his right shoulder. Luckily, if one could call it that, the shard had not penetrated the chest area, so he didn't have internal wounds Also, major arteries had not been hit, so the bleeding was less than it could have been. Unluckily, the shard was big enough to nearly amputate the arm. As it was, the only thing still connecting the arm to the shoulder was skin, tendons and muscle. The re enforced glass had cut straight through the bone.

We might never know why or how, but Harry was conscious. Through the agonizing pain in his shoulder and loss of most of the feeling in the arm below, he managed to get out of the car, acquiring a new collection of scrapes from the glass that was spread out through the car. Holding his right arm tightly to him, he stumbled away from the car. His vision swam and his stomach was seriously threatening to dump its content on the ground, but holding still for a few moments calmed his stomach a bit. He fell to his knees and lifted his head so he could assess the situation. He saw the car upside down. He saw the truck a bit farther away. He also saw the flames that began to form around that truck. A truck that happened to be a gasoline truck.

_'Shit.'_

That was the only thought that had time to form before the truck exploded and engulfed everything in a radius of 100m in flame.

---

Hermione Granger was glad to be home. True, she loved Hogwarts, but she still loved being home with her parents. She had just had dinner with her parents and was now relaxing in the couch while her parents were doing the dishes. If you can call filling the dishwasher doing dishes... Still, it felt nice being home. She looked at the clock and saw that it was time for the news, so she got up and turned to TV on to the local news station.

_'... and with that, the Mayor hopes to increase the number of jobs in the construction sector._

_In other news, earlier today just outside of Little Whinging, a tragic accident occurred. A car, recently found to be belonging to one Vernon Dursley was hit by a gasoline truck. Both vehicles got off the road and nearly ended up in the river. Investigators are still trying to determine how the accident occurred, but what is certain so far, is that none of the people involved in the accident survived the crash and the following explosion. The gasoline truck exploded and destroyed everything around it for at least 120 meters in every direction. An investigation has been started ...'_

Hermione was in tears by this news. This couldn't be happening. She had only said goodbye to Harry just hours before.

"No... no, it's not true. Harry's not dead. No, please... don't let it be true. Oh, God, no... NOOOOOO!!!!!!"

Hermione's heart rendering wail brought her parents running. They had no idea what could set off their daughter like this, when she had been happy only minutes before. Hermione herself didn't offer any explanations. She just continued sobbing and saying that 'no, it couldn't be true' every now and then.

------

That's it for chapter one. Tell me what you think. Hopefully, I'll be able to get the next chapter out soon, but keep in mind that I'm starting my exams next week, so it might not be for the first few days.


	2. Chapter 2

A Different Path - Chapter 2 

I'll try to keep the dates right, but I'm gonna throw in technology from later years. Stuff like DVD and MP3-players and such. Just a note so that nobody needs to complain that the tech doesn't match the time they're in.

------

**A Different Path**

_Chapter 2_

_Tuesday, 17 September 1996_

It had been about two and a half months now since the accident. The wizarding world was mourning the loss of their hero. And strangely, Voldemort hadn't made a peep. Unknown to the rest of the wizarding world, the sudden loss of the link Voldemort had with Harry had caused him considerable pain and had sent his magic in disarray. Had they know this and where he was hiding, he could easily have been killed. But they did not know, so nothing changed. Voldemort's magic had returned to normal after 3 weeks and the pain had lasted only two days. Still, he was cautious and lay low for the time being.

School had started again. The Slytherins, or most of the higher years anyway, with Malfoy as de facto leader, had been very outgoing about their pleasure that Harry Potter was no more. However, it hadn't lasted long. Whatever resentments any of the other Houses might have had against Harry, they did acknowledge that he had defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named on various occasions and had banded together to silence the Slytherin House in a spectacular way. The group of Slytherins that was glad Potter was gone had literally encountered the combined strength of the remaining three Houses and quickly stopped any outward gloating they had. They had been threatened to be 'cursed to Hell and back' if they so much as thought of thinking anything bad about Harry Potter. The leading forces in this short, but spectacular confrontation had been the remainder of the Dynamic Trio, Hermione and Ron, strengthened by Neville, Ginny and, to the surprise of many, Luna Lovegood. Shortly after, classes had regained an air of normalicy, but a feeling of sadness remained.

Today, during lunch, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville and Luna, who had started to take her meals with them, sat together as had become their custom. Hermione and Ginny were sitting next to each other. Across from Ginny was Luna, who sat next to Ron, to his irritation. True, Luna wasn't so bad once you got to know her, but Ron had the distinct impression that Luna deliberately sat next to him for some reason. Neville had taken the seat next to Ron, as he didn't feel all that comfortable sitting next to Hermione. True, they were friends, but Neville had a bit of a weak spot for pretty girls and Hermione had grown in some obvious places over the summer. So had Ginny and Luna for that matter.

Having just finished their main course, desserts appeared on the table.

"Neville, could you pass the treacle tart, please?" Ginny asked. Neville was closest to the plate and nodded. He took the place and passed it to Ron, in order to give to his sister. But Ron paused when he had the plate in his hands, looking at the tart with a sad expression.

"Ron? What's wrong?" Hermione asked, having seen the change in his mood.

"Treacle tart was Harry's favorite." He answered before passing on the plate. The mood, which hadn't been all that great to begin with, dropped like a brick. Nobody could blame Ron, as they all felt the loss of their friend. But Ron seemed to take it the hardest of all. Though, even in his grief for the loss of his best friend, he didn't forget that he had another best friend who was grieving just as he was. Hermione and Ron had spent a lot of time together, helping each other through their grief. One day, when letting go of each other from a comforting hug, their faces had drifted closer together and they'd shared a kiss. Not a passionate kiss or anything, but a normal kiss, one that spoke of how much they cared for the other. After the kiss, they had held each other for a long time.

A week later however, both had felt that, although they loved the other and felt good hugging and occasionally kissing the other, it was not the love one had for someone you wanted to spend the rest of your life with. What they felt was more of a combination of love between siblings and trust that had developed over the course of 5 years. They agreed to stop trying to pursue any romantic relationship, at least at that time. Maybe later, when they weren't grieving, they could examine their feelings deeper. They still shared the occasional hug if they needed the comfort, but no more than that. Their friendship had grown stronger because of it.

Time to wallow in their sorrow for their friend, was up though. The doors of the Great Hall opened, alerting everyone of the impending arrival of someone. Almost everyone looked to see who was coming in, as there had been no notice of visitors. Slowly the door opened.

Someone clad entirely in black could be seen through the doors. Wearing what appeared to be black boots, loose black pants, a loose black jacket and a black, otherwise unmarked baseball cap. The only hit of color in the entire wardrobe could be seen through the top of the jacket, which was opened slightly to reveal a dark blue T-shirt. Hands stuffed in pockets, the figure stood still until the door had opened completely.

The students who were sitting nearest to the doors, could make out a few more details than the rest of them. The figure was obviously male and stood about 5 foot 8 inches (± 1.73 m ). Broad shoulders, but not overly so. The jacket hid the rest of his figure pretty well, hanging loosely on his frame. Very confident pose, even when standing as relaxed as he was, whoever he was. Baseball cap drawn so that his eyes were hidden from view, unless someone bent over to peek under the flap. They could see his hair though. Black as night and rather long from what they could see. Very unruly too. Two more things could be seen on what was visible of his face. First, the goatee that the young man had. Nothing fanciful, just a simple goatee like many people in the world sported one. Second was the scar on the left cheek. A soft red, going pink, scar of about 2, maybe 2.5 inches adorned the left cheek of the young man.

Then he started to walk in the Hall. He didn't seem to be in any hurry, as he strolled in. When he passed the first students, they could confirm that his hair was indeed long. It hung to just above his waist in a simple but thick, spiky ponytail. The tail was held together by what appeared to be a leather cord of some kind. Those who looked up to see if they could see more of his face, could see that his fringe was spiky to a fault too. He continued to stroll further into the Great Hall at a relaxed pace. Until he suddenly stopped.

Turning his head to the right, he looked right at where Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Luna and Neville were seated. Several moments he seemed to be studying them without moving or showing any indication of what he was thinking on his face, or what was visible of it anyway. How he could see anything while his eyes were still hidden by the flap of his cap, nobody knew. Then, a smile began to show on his lips. Lazily, he drew his right hand from his pocket and tipped the flap of the cap up with his index finger, revealing a pair of piercing emerald green eyes.

"What? No hello for me?" He drawled.

Nobody moved for the next few moments, but suddenly he was tackled by both Hermione and Ginny. Taking a step back to steady himself, he grabbed both girls in a big hug, which they returned with crushing force. Both could be heard to be sobbing. Meanwhile, Ron, followed closely by Neville, had gone straight over the table, spilling food all over the table. He too wanted to welcome his best friend back, but from the looks of it, neither of the girls seemed inclined to let go of him any time soon.

By now, everyone, save for the first years and some second years, had caught the fact that it was actually Harry Potter that had strolled in the Great Hall moments ago. As such, conversation started all around the Hall. Dumbledore, as well as the rest of the teachers, had stood up and was making his way to where Harry was standing. McGonagall and Snape were following. Hagrid wasn't present at the time, otherwise he'd have joined the migration too.

Meanwhile, Harry had succeeded in getting loose from Hermione and Ginny and was now exchanging strong thumps on the back with Ron. When he let go of him, he could see that the red haired teen had tears in his eyes. He smiled at the sight and punched his friend lightly on the shoulder before grabbing Neville in a strong hug. After exchanging a couple of manly thumps on the back, he noticed that someone seemed to be missing. And indeed, Luna hadn't moved from her spot at the table. She was looking at them, but didn't seem inclined to join them. Frowning slightly, he took the path that Ron had taken minutes earlier, and went over the table to where she was sitting.

"Hello, Luna." He said once he was standing on her side of the table.

"Hello, Harry." She replied to the greeting.

"Would you object to a hug?" He asked.

At this, Luna smiled. Not one of her dreamy smiles that she often wore on her lips, but a true smile, one that spoke of happiness. She shook her head in denial.

"I think I would enjoy that, Harry."

And Harry pulled Luna in a gentle hug, without the crushing strength either of the other two girls had used, and Luna responded in kind by letting her arms enveloping his waist and squeezing softly. They stayed like that for a couple of moments before they let go of the other. He turned to the rest of his friends who still stood on the other of the table. Or so he thought. He barely finished turning around before he was once again nearly crushed to death by one redhead and one bushy brunette. He smiled as he put his arms around them.

"I've missed you too." He said. "We'll catch up later, but now there are some unpleasantries to be dealt with."

And indeed, Dumbledore had come close enough to speak with the gathered friends. Harry didn't let go of the girls, and neither did they, but they did turn to face the approaching teachers.

"Hello Harry. It's good to see you, alive and well." Dumbledore had a smile on his face as he said this and his eyes twinkled like they normally did.

"Only my friends are allowed to call me by my given name, old man. You're not one of them." Harry replied in a cold tone.

Whatever Dumbledore had been expecting, this wasn't it. His smile left his lips and the usual twinkle in his eyes became duller. McGonagall looked very upset that anyone would speak to the Headmaster like this and voiced her objections.

"Mr. Potter! You will show the Headmaster the respect he's due! 20 Points from Gryffindor for your disrespect." Snape sneered at this and opened his mouth to add his own commentary.

"Snape, one word from you and I'll permanently remove your vocal cords. It's bad enough this world has to suffer your existence, the least you could do is keep silent. Professor McGonagall, I gave the old man the respect he's due. None. After everything he'd done to me, he deserves none. He's lucky I even acknowledge him." Harry said. This of course resulted in shocking everyone who could hear that statement. McGonagall looked even more upset than she did before and Snape was glowering with rage, sputtering incoherently. The ever present twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes had vanished altogether now and he looked sadder than he'd ever seen him look.

"Snape, I'm warning you, I will carry out my threat of removing your vocal cords if you don't keep silent. Believe me, I'll enjoy it very much and the world in general will thank me for it, of that I have no doubt." Harry continued in the same tone he'd started in.

By now, the entire Hall had caught wind of what was being said and conversations were starting all over the tables. More than a few students would love to see the threat being carried out, even if it was only temporary. Harry's friends had no idea what was happening and were very much shocked at what Harry was saying, but they didn't move a muscle. If anything, Ron, Neville and Luna stepped closer to Harry, leaving no doubt in anyone's mind that they were backing him up, no questions asked. Snape however, looked like he was going to explode. His face was abandoning the color red and stepping into the realm of purple at a very fast rate. Harry realized that Snape would never be able to keep his mouth shut and he really didn't want to hear his voice. Not now, not ever again. However, his threat applied to when he spoke, which he hadn't done yet. So as an alternative, he sent a small tendril of magic to Snape, which prevented his vocal cords to move even the smallest bit. This could be undone at any time, but still kept the man silent so Harry had no problem with doing so. Sure enough, Snape opened his mouth to scream his head off and not a single sound came from it.

Dumbledore could see that this would get out of hand.

"Harry, please join me in my office. We'll discuss things there."

"I don't think so, old man. I have no intention of going anywhere with you, nor will I discuss anything with you. My only reasons for being here are my friends. I'm no longer a student of this school. As such, I don't need to explain myself to you. I don't care what you think of that because that's how things are." Harry said, eyes narrowing at the old man that stood on the other side of the table. Dumbledore, as well as the rest of the school, was understandably shocked at what Harry said. Hermione opened her mouth to protest at this, but Harry silenced her by covering her mouth with his hand. "Later." He whispered to her.

"Harry, I implore you not to do anything rash. Please, come with me to my office and we can talk things out." Dumbledore pleaded. He couldn't believe that Harry would abandon his education, nor would he allow it. He was too important in this war to simply let him go.

"Old man, I told you before that only my friend can call me by my given name and that you are not one of them. And I just finished saying that I'm not going anywhere with you. Are you deaf as well as stupid? What I do with my life is nobody's business but my own. So leave me alone. I have some catching up to do with those I care about. Do not follow us." And with that he turned around, something that wasn't as simple as it might have been, seeing as he was still held by two girls.

"Room of Requirement, guys." He said once he'd turned around so he could face the rest of the group. They were completely bewildered by now and hadn't said a word since Dumbledore had begun speaking to Harry. They figured they'd get some kind of explanation when they were in private, so they nodded their acceptance and moved to the door.

"Harry, I'm afraid I can't allow you to leave. You must come to my office so we can talk about your absence and your apparent decision to leave school." Dumbledore tried again.

"You can try to stop me old man, but you'll pay the consequences. I don't care what happens to you, I want to spend some time with my friends. And don't call me Harry, you've lost that right with your actions toward me. Now leave me alone." Harry said without turning or slowing down.

"I'm afraid you leave me no choice." Dumbledore said in a sad voice. He drew his wand from his robes and aimed it at Harry. _"Stupefy."_

What happened next would remain the topic of discussion in the school for days to come. Harry, having heard and sensed the attack, let go of the girls and pushed them forward. He turned with blinding speed and raised his right hand in the path of the spell. Said spell splattered against his hand like a raw egg would against a wall, but it didn't even ruffle the black glove he wore. All of this happened in less than two seconds. The expression on Harry's face was one of resignation mixed with a touch of anger. He'd known the old man wouldn't let him go quietly.

"I told you there would be consequences." And with that, a ripple shot out of his still outstretched hand, heading straight for Dumbledore.

Dumbledore, while shocked at the failure of his spell, still raised his wand and put up a shield. A fairly strong one too. Imagine his surprise when the ripple, or whatever it was, passed through the shield as if it wasn't there. It knocked into his chest with enough force to send him flying, straight into Snape, knocking both of them to the ground. Dumbledore was in no condition to get up, as his chest felt like it was on fire and he couldn't seem to breathe. The entire Hall had gone silent and the remaining teachers had gotten up and were moving towards their position.

"This is your second warning. Do something like that again and I'll do far worse than hit you with a burst of compressed air. I want to spend time with my friends, so don't follow me." He could see that more than one of the approaching teachers had their wand out and it looked like McGonagall was going for her wand too. He sighed. Things were never easy for him. He focused his magic in the pattern needed and released his spell by clapping loudly in his hands. The effects were immediate. Everyone fell asleep in an instant. Those not sitting fell to the floor like a puppet with his wires cut. Unfortunately, that included his friends. They'd fallen like a sack of potatoes to the floor. Harry sighed again. Nope, never easy. He levitated his sleeping friends and began his walk to the Room of Requirement.

------

Done. Tell me what you think.


	3. Chapter 3

First off, for the people who want to have some idea of what Harry's hair looks like: check out the pics on http/users.pandora.be/exarikun/files/pics/adp/  
You'll see two pics of a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R sports bike too, that's Harry's.

* * *

**A Different Path**

_Chapter 3_

Harry was enjoying himself. Very much so. The reasons for his amusement were lying on an extra-large bed, courtesy of the Room of Requirement. Upon his arrival, the Room had promptly provided him with a bed to deposit his sleeping friends in. Having developed a bit of a pranking streak in his away time, he couldn't resist arranging his friends in all sorts of positions and pairs to gleefully take their pictures with his modified digital camera. Currently he had Neville lying near the middle of the bed, with Ginny cuddled on one side of him and Luna on his other side. Both were hugging him and he had his arms around their waists. Above them, he'd positioned Ron, who had a sleeping Hermione on his chest. Ron was snoring in typical Ron fashion, which of course was none too softly, and was drooling from the corner of his mouth to boot. He'd positioned Hermione in such a fashion that she had one leg nestled between Ron's legs, and then made it look like she was sucking her thumb much like a newborn. He'd refrained from transfiguring their clothes, as he didn't want to invade their privacy. Might have been fun though, to see the girls wearing a baby doll...

Grinning, he figured he had enough pictures to embarrass the hell out of them whenever he needed, so he nullified the sleeping spell over his friends. Without the spell keeping them asleep they'd wake up in a couple of minutes. He entertained himself by thinking of the possible ways they could react when waking. Whatever they did, he was guaranteed to get some laughs from it.

Neville was the first to stir. He made motions as if to turn over and get some more sleep, but the presence of a body on either side of him prevented that. Waking up somewhat more, he frowned when he found his movements restricted. His arms and hands began to feel what the restriction could be, and from Harry's point of view it looked like he was groping both Luna and Ginny. Suddenly his hand found it's way to Luna's breast and squeezed, which caused her to let out a low moan and Neville's eyes to shoot open. When he realised where he was, whom he was holding, and where, he froze up completely. By now, Harry had stuffed his fist in his mouth to contain his laughter. Neville's posture reminded him of the time he'd had a full body bind cast on him. His sides hurt from keeping his mirth under control. When Luna suddenly tightened her hold on Neville's waist and mumbled something about teddy bears Harry couldn't take it any longer. He burst out laughing, and laughed so hard that he fell out of his seat.

His outburst served the purpose of waking everyone else up. Looking around, still very sleepy, the first few moments none of them caught on to their compromising positions. Ginny was the first catch it and, after squawking loudly, she scrambled away like a madwoman. After that it became a free-for-all scramble competition. Luna was the only one that was calm about it all. Having hauled himself up so as to not miss any of the action, this display only made Harry laugh even harder than he was. He was gasping for air every now and then, only to break out in a new bout of gut-busting laughter.

Harry couldn't stop laughing. By now, his friends were all staring at him as if he was crazy. But Ginny was rapidly growing irritated with the laughter. She grabbed a pillow from the bed and threw it straight at Harry, who stopped laughing the moment the pillow hit him in the face. When the pillow fell away from him, it revealed a shocked looking Harry. Clearly he hadn't been expecting that particular reaction. But the shocked look didn't last long though. It soon morphed into a devilish grin. A grin that grew bigger as a big pile of pillows appeared next to him.

"PILLOWFIGHT!" He yelled. And began throwing pillows at all his friends. More piles of pillows began to appear near his friends too, courtesy of the Room, and they began to retaliate. Pillows flew through the Room in all directions. It had started out as Harry vs. Friends, but it had dissolved in a free-for-all after Ron accidentally whacked Neville with a pillow. After nearly 10 minutes of whacking and getting whacked with pillows, all 6 friends collapsed on the bed, breathing hard.

"Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"Where have you been?" At this, Harry chuckled.

"Don't ever change, Hermione."

Nothing was said for a few minutes. Hermione was about to ask her question again when Harry spoke.

"I can't tell you where I've been because I don't trust Dumbledore to leave you alone about it. I refuse to put myself back under his control and manipulations. He'll do everything he can think of to regain control over me. If you don't know where I was, he can't get it out of you."

"Harry! You can't say that about Professor Dumbledore. He doesn't try to control you, he just wants to keep you safe." Hermione admonished.

"That's not true. At least not entirely. He does want me safe, but not for the reasons you're thinking off. I'll prove to you that he IS trying to control and manipulate me. But first, how long was I gone?"

"You don't know?"

"I know how long it was for me, but not how long it was for all of you. I know the two periods aren't the same in length. Something to do with time dilations or some such..."

Most of his friends looked at him with confusion, but Hermione and Luna both had speculative looks on their faces.

"You were gone for two and a half months Harry." Luna responded.

"Hmm. I see. Well then, what was two and a half months for you was two and a half years for me."

"You were gone for more than 2 years?" Neville asked, disbelief written across his face. Harry nodded.

"Yep. So I had quite some time to think and reflect on a lot of things. Also, I believe you've all earned the right to know the content of the prophecy you risked your lives for. I don't care what Dumbledore thinks, you have a right to know."

"Wasn't the prophecy destroyed?"

"No. That was just a recording of the original. They keep recordings of all prophecies at the Ministry it seems. The original was, as ironic as it may seem, given by Trelawney and witnessed by who else but the old man himself."

"Trelawney? But she's a fraud! She never made any predictions that came true." Ron said with no small amount of disgust.

"Actually, she did. She predicted that Pettigrew would be found and would rejoin his master. That was her second real prediction. The first one was about me. And this is what it said." Harry took a deep breath and started to repeat the prophecy as he'd heard it from Dumbledore's pensieve.

_'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies. And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not. And either must die at the hands of the other for neither can live while the other survives. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies.'_

Silence descended in the room. None of his friends knew what to say to that.

"You don't believe that, do you mate? I mean, it's Trelawney that made it, so what are the chances of it being true?" Ron voiced his opinion.

"I do believe it and it's genuine too. I wouldn't be alive right now if it wasn't. It's only because of the prophecy that I survived the accident. It protected me. But that's all I can say about it for the moment. I wanted you to know what you all risked your lives for. Don't worry, I've got it pretty much covered. But I said I was going to prove that Dumbledore wants to control me. First you should know that I've been back for about 2 days. I'm sorry that I didn't contact you sooner, but I needed to find out some things. One of the things I found was that I inherited a lot from Sirius. And as he was still designated my guardian, on his death my family's inheritance became available to me too. Among all that I inherited was a copy of my parents last will. I read it out of interest, and found it clearly specified that under no circumstances was I to be left with the Dursleys, and gave the reasons why. Sirius was supposed to get custody of me. Yet as you can see Dumbledore royally ignored the will. And before you say that maybe he didn't know what the will said, I'll tell you that Dumbledore was the executor of the will, so he knew damn well what was in it. But instead, he decided that he knew best and left me with them. After that he never lifted a finger, even though he knew how I was being treated by them."

"Harry, how can you be certain he knew how you were being treated? I mean, he couldn't have kept an eye on you the entire time, he has other duties too…" Hermione countered.

"Ok, that's a fair argument. Here's my response. I went back to Privet Drive and scanned the house. The blood magic ward that protected me are there. So he didn't lie about that. I was safe there, from everybody but the Dursleys. I also found no less than 25 charms that relay everything that happens in that house back to his office here at Hogwarts. It's literally swarming with spying charms so he knew damn well what was happening at any given time. He personally sent me my Hogwarts letter, and it was addressed to 'The Cupboard Under the Stairs'. I think that should tell you that he knew enough of how I was being treated." He looked at Hermione to see if she understood what he was telling her. Apparently she did, as an uncertain look crossed her face. He didn't like destroying people's confidence in someone, but in this case he had no choice.

"Instead of just telling you everything, I'll give you some facts and see if you can come to the same conclusion as I have about the next. What do you all know about the Fidelius charm?"

As usual, Hermione was the first to answer. "The Fidelius charm conceals an object or person and only one person knows the location of what's being concealed. That person is called a 'secret keeper' and he or she is the only one that can tell others where to find what is concealed. The secret keeper can reveal the location to another person through the use of a key phrase, however that person will not be able to pass on the information.

"Very good Hermione. As usual…" Harry said with grin. That grin didn't last long though. "Now comes the unpleasant part. What do we know about the secret keeper for my parents?"

"That it was Pettigrew, not Sirius as everyone thought. They switched because they thought no one would suspect Pettigrew to be the secret keeper. But since he was a Death Eater…" Hermione left the rest unsaid.

"Right. But, and here I want you to think carefully, just moments after the attack Dumbledore knew about it and was able to send Hagrid to the place where they lived. What does that tell you?"

Understanding dawned on Hermione's face, but it was Luna that answered first.

"It shows that he knew where they were and that means he had been told by the secret keeper."

"Exactly! And that means that he knew who the secret keeper was. So tell me this. Why didn't he speak up when Sirius was sent to Azkaban without even a trial? He knew who the real secret keeper was, and yet he never said anything. He even went so far as to say how shocked he was that Sirius would do such a thing. So that begs the question, why?"

Everyone, save Luna, looked shocked at these revelations. They never imagined that their Headmaster, whom they all trusted, would do such a thing. Luna had figured it out when she'd first come to the conclusion that Dumbledore had known whom the real secret keeper was.

"He never said anything, because if Sirius Black was free then he would claim custody over you. And he didn't want that because he knew what kind of people your aunt and uncle were. He was counting on the fact that you would see him as your savior when you got your letter. That way he could mold you as he saw fit."

Harry looked at Luna with newfound respect in his eyes. He knew she was smart, she was a Ravenclaw after all, but she managed to put the pieces together faster than anyone else had, even Hermione. He nodded at her.

"That's exactly right Luna. And it worked, I did see him as my savior from the Dursleys. But he made a couple of big mistakes in his dealings with me. And the one of the biggest ones was during the summer after fourth year. I'd just witnessed someone being killed, had seen Voldemort being reborn, and only just escaped death myself. And what does he do? He puts me in a communications blackout. Everyone knows that with experiences like that you need to be able to talk to people about it, to come to terms with what happened. As if that wasn't enough, he then almost completely ignored me during all of fifth year and simply began ordering me to do what he said, with the prime example of me needing to learn Occlumency. Never once did he explain to me why I needed to learn it, just that it was of vital importance that I do as he said. Then to top it off, I had to learn from the one person I despised most of all in this entire school."

At this point, Harry took a few moments to calm down, because he'd promised himself that he wouldn't lose his temper again. But whenever he thought about what the old man had done to him, he couldn't help but become angry. He took another deep breath and continued.

"Then, because he never told me why I needed to learn it and because Snape can't teach to save his life, I fell for Voldemorts trap. Because of me, all of you followed me to the DoD and all of you got hurt in the process. Don't argue with me, that's how it happened. And in case I haven't done it yet, I want to thank all of you again for standing with me, even on something so dangerous and insane."

All Harry's friends nodded their acceptance of his thanks. They could see that he wasn't beating himself up over the fact that they got hurt and that he respected their choices.

"Sirius died because he came to our rescue. I've accepted that, and I've moved on, vowing I'll never forget his or anyone's sacrifice. But immediately afterwards, without even giving me time to grieve for him, he shows me the prophecy and basically tells me it's all up to me. That I have to kill or be killed. He told me that when I was 15 and was in shock about what had all happened before."

Harry paused again to let everything he'd said sink in. He was used to his reasons and thinking, but his friends weren't.

"Do you understand now why I'll never trust him again? He doesn't work for the greater good like he claims to, he works for his vision of what should be done. And while doing so he uses people without any regard of their thoughts and feelings. To him people are nothing but pawns in his quest to stop Voldemort. And no matter how good that goal is, if you don't see the people that fight against the darkness and injustice and risk their lives as people, then you're no better then Voldemort."

He looked at all his friends and saw they were weighing his words, thinking about everything he said. Good. That meant they didn't just accept his words a truth because he'd said them. That was what he wanted, people who thought for themselves, not mindless drones who asked how high he wanted them to jump when he told them too.

True to his usual self, Ron wasn't a big thinker. He was more of a strategist, as was shown in his chess games and thoughts about Quiddich. So he mulled over Harry's words and found that they did have truth in them. That done, he asked the question he'd been wanting to ask ever since he'd seen Harry again.

"Harry?"

"Yeah Ron?"

"What's with the long hair?"

* * *

There. Finally done. Tell me what you think. I haven't given any clues to with what the story crosses over, but would somebody like to make a guess? I'll give a hint and say it's an anime. 


	4. Chapter 4

Hey all. Here I am again. I thank all those who took the time to review. I appreciate it. And here's the next chapter

------

**A Different Path**

_Chapter 4_

"My hair? What's wrong with my hair?" Harry asked, running his hand through it.

"It's long..." Ron said, as if that explained everything. And perhaps for him it did.

Harry goggled a bit at his redheaded friend. Of course his hair was long; he hadn't cut it since the accident and had an unexpected hair growth-spurt as a side effect of some training.

"Yeah, it's long. I haven't cut it since the accident. And I like it long. Besides, it's intimidating as hell when it's loose and I'm making it fly all around."

That was something he'd discovered by accident. Not too long ago he'd finished taking a bath and his hair was still hanging loose on his back so it could dry, when the door of his apartment at that time was broken open and a pair of armed men, complete with ski masks, busted into his temporary home. Wearing only a towel at the time, he'd ran out of the bathroom to see what all the noise was about. Confronted with the two armed men, he'd been lucky that they hadn't opened fire right away, or he'd have been seriously wounded at the very least. Gathering his magic, he'd prepared to take them down when he saw them freeze. Wondering what was making the men stop, he'd looked around but made sure he never let them out of his sight. When he caught sight of his reflection in the tall mirror off his dresser, he was mightily surprised to see his loose hair angrily floating around in a non-existent breeze. The result seemed to give him an aura of dark power that was damn scary to behold, and it was his hair that was floating! Quickly he managed to subdue his would be attackers, before they had the chance to gather their wits about them. He removed the memory of what had happened from their minds and sent them to the nearest police station with a note taped to them. He briefly wondered what reaction the police would have when they stumbled in the office and didn't know how or why they were turning themselves in. After that, he'd spent some time trying to recreate the effect and enhance it. Who knows when he'd need to intimidate the pants off of someone?

"Really?" Ron asked. "Can you show us?" As always, Ron was keen on seeing something cool. Harry shrugged and grinned. It felt damn good to be back with his friends. Standing up he slipped off his jacket and tossed it on the seat he'd been sitting on previously. His friends either propped themselves up on the bed to get a better look, or moved to one of the extra seats the Room had provided. Reaching behind his head, he grabbed the leather cord and untied it. When finished his hair fell loose on his back. At the same time Luna gasped, and she looked at him with even wider eyes than normal. The gasp had been of a different kind of emotion than the looks of admiration that Ginny and Hermione sent his way, or the approving looks from the two young men. Feeling concerned, he knelt in front of the seat she'd taken.

"Luna, are you alright?" He gently asked. Luna kept looking at him as if she didn't recognise him. Harry frowned and thought back to what could have made her react like that. She had gasped the moment he'd finished untying the leather cord that held his hair together. A thought made it's way in his mind, but before he had time to contemplate it, Luna spoke.

"So strong..." She whispered. The previous thought of Harry came back to the front of his mind and he was forced to conclude that he was most likely correct in his assumption of what had caused his blond female friend to react the way she had.

"Luna, what did you see or feel?" At this, the rest of the group looked at Luna with confusion as they had noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Luna however, had.

"When you removed the band from your hair, it seemed as if your magical power... expanded I guess you could call it. Like waves rolling off you, only far stronger than a moment before." She was still looking at him with her wider-than-normal eyes, silently asking him to tell her she hadn't imagined it. Harry was almost entirely sure what had happened, but he needed to be absolutely certain before he could explain anything. Focusing his magic just over his raised right hand, he formed it into a pattern that was invisible to all those without his abilities.

"Luna, can you feel or see something over my hand?" Luna stared at his hand for a long moment, before looking back in his eyes.

"There's something there. It feels like... a cloud of magical energy. I can see something too, but it's very faint, almost like it's not even there." Here she looked back at his hand and squinted a bit, trying to get a clearer image of whatever it was that hovered there. When she couldn't, she turned back to Harry. "Harry, what's happening to me?" She asked with fear rising in her voice.

"Luna, I want you to take a deep breath...hold it...hold it...now let it go. Deep breath...hold it...hold it...let it go. Good, you're a bit calmer now. I've got a good idea what's happening, but I need to check to make sure, ok?" Luna nodded and Harry took her hands in his and closed his eyes. Reaching out with his magical senses, he touched Luna's magical core. Immediately, he had his answer. He sighed.

"I'm sure now. Luna, like me, you have the ability to sense, see, and even directly manipulate magic. You've always had that power, but it was wild, erratic. From what I can sense, my presence is stabilising your own power. Eventually, with time and training, you'll be able to do things with magic that relatively few of the people who can use magic are able to." Harry paused, giving Luna, and the rest of their friends, some time to process what he'd revealed. As expected, Hermione was the first to assimilate the data presented to her and to react accordingly.

"Is that why you told the headmaster you weren't a student of Hogwarts anymore?"

"Partly. No teacher here has anything they can teach me about magic that I don't already know or can't find out myself with a minimum of effort. The other part of it is that I simply don't trust anyone who blindly obeys the old man." Harry responded. Hermione frowned at the obvious disrespect he was showing for the headmaster, but after what he'd told them earlier, she didn't say anything about it. "He can't stand not knowing where I've been or what I've been doing, so he'll do anything in his power to find out, even try to take it from your minds if you won't tell him. I'm working on something that will make you impervious to mind-reading attempts, although until then I've got something else. But it'll have to wait just a bit longer."

Harry turned back to Luna, who looked a lot calmer than before. "Luna, you'll need training, and at the moment I'm the only one that I know of who can teach you. Will you allow me to teach you?" He gently asked the blond girl. She needed no time to think about this, and nodded immediately. She trusted him to help her with this. Harry nodded back to show he'd accepted her decision. He wouldn't have pressed had she chosen to remain untrained. The ability itself wasn't dangerous if left untrained. After all, most of those who had the gift for it never found out and lived their lives as normal wizards or even muggles, if the ministry didn't detect their magical ability. Given the crappy management of the ministry these days, he was sure that at least a fifth of newblood wizards, or muggleborns as the wizards called them, were never found. He snorted when that led him to think of something else.

"What?" Ginny asked, who'd been mostly quiet until now.

"It's ironic to think that the 'power the dark lord knows not' is merely an ability like any other. If he'd do a little research, he could find out all about it." Harry answered her.

"You mean that this ability you and Luna have is that unknown power?" Neville this time.

"Yes. And Luna and I aren't the only ones with this ability. I've been to America, Australia and even checked in Africa. I asked around a bit, and you know what? They've got people there with the same ability. Collectively, we're called Toa. Don't ask me why, I don't know. It's as much a designation as it is a title. You know what else I found out when I was searching if there were other people with my ability?" All his friends shook their head.

"British wizards and witches are the laughing stock of the entire magical world." His friends looked pretty shocked to hear this. "Do you want to know why the rest of the world thinks so, and rightly so in my opinion?" Even more shocked that Harry agreed with the opinion, they all nodded.

"First of all, the so called 'Ministry of Magic'. A big name for something with little to no value. Whereas the rest of the world evolved and adapted, the ministry in Great Britan, and by extension the entire population, kept on its medieval thinking. I mean, for Gods sake, we still write with quills and on parchment! The rest of the world long stepped over to ballpoints and normal paper. Second, the belief that Albus Dumbledore is the strongest wizard alive. There are dozens at least as strong as or stronger than him. Hell, that 'belief' doesn't even hold true in Britan itself, seeing as Voldemort himself is stronger than him." Noticeable here was the lack of gasps or shivers on any of his friends when he said Voldemort's name.

"Lastly, and I fully agree with this one, is that British wizards and witches are complete and utter cowards." Now this, this got a response. Outraged shouts came from all his friends, bar Ron, surprisingly, and Luna, who was most likely still thinking about the revelations earlier. "Ron, I don't see you yelling that it's not true. Why not?" The redhead shifted in his seat as the accusing looks of his sister and his other female friend rested on him.

"Because it is true. Sure, some people stand up when they simply can't do anything else, but the general populace is too afraid to do anything. The fact that the non-Dark population outnumbers the Death Eaters at least 4 to 1 doesn't seem to register." He explained. Harry nodded.

"That's correct. Did you know that the last time America had trouble from a Dark wizard was over a century ago? His reign of terror, if it can be called that, lasted a little less than two weeks. When he first began, he was offered the chance to return to the light and to redeem himself. When he refused, everyone old enough became his enemy and actively searched for him. The few followers he had were taken care of in minutes when they found him. The Dark wizard himself was stripped of his powers and was sent to a maximum security psychiatric facility, for he was obviously insane to believe that he was a wizard and could do magic." Harry looked at his friends to see their reactions. They varied from disbelief to thoughtful.

"The kicker here is the American and Australian ruling bodies offered help to take care of Voldemort when he rose for the first time. Our dear ministry declined, stating that they were more than capable to deal with their own problems. Result, nearly two decades of Voldemort's reign in his first rise, only to be stopped be a child protected by a prophecy. Thirteen years later, he's reborn and begins his second rise while the ministry ignores it. As you can see, the rest of the magical world has a lot to laugh at."

Hermione had to say something in defense of all the people Harry was calling cowards. "Harry, what about the Order? The people there aren't cowards, they stand up to Voldemort and the Death Eaters." Harry shrugged.

"Sure, they oppose him. But that's all they do. Tell me Hermione, exactly what have they accomplished? The single largest amount of his followers that was captured was during the DoM affair, and that was because of us, not them. All the Order does, Hermione, is defense and cleanup. You don't win a war that way; it's a sure way to defeat. And, surprise surprise, it's all because of the old man and his belief that everyone deserves a second chance. He doesn't understand that most of Voldemort's followers enjoy what they do. That they enjoy hurting people and killing defenseless muggles. He's convinced that once Voldemort is gone all his followers will see the error of their ways and rejoin the side of light and everyone will live happily ever after." The last was said with such contempt for Dumbledore that it made Hermione flinch and lower her eyes.

"You trust too much in authority, Hermione. You need to start thinking for yourself, and deciding what's right and worth fighting for instead of taking somebody else's word for it. I can think of 3 people inside the Order that do that. Mad-Eye, and the twins. Maybe Bill and Charlie too, but I don't know them well enough to be sure. All the others will ask where, when and how high to jump when the old man tells them to jump. No one except those 3 will think to as 'why'..."

Silence descended on the occupants of the Room. Hermione looked really disturbed by what Harry had said, Ginny looked thoughtful and somewhat repulsed, and Neville looked to be deep in thought. Ron had come to the same conclusion about the Order as Harry had some time ago, so he was the least affected by what he'd said about it. But the news of Luna's abilities and what the rest of the magical world thought of them still had him thinking.

"I really do want you to think about what I've been saying to you, but I also really wanna know if any of you know where Hedwig is. I sent her ahead when we left the train station, and I have no idea where she is at this point." Harry interrupted their musings.

"She came to me after the accident." Hermione said. "I'd just seen the news that told about the accident and about the fact that no-one survived, and she arrived at my home, looking lost and miserable. I took her in and cared for her as you would have. She was, and still is, very sad that you were gone."

"Thanks Hermione. That's a big relief. She really means a lot to me."

Hermione blushed slightly at the genuine emotion his voice carried. "How come you haven't seen her yet, if you've been back a couple days now?" She asked.

"Simple. Hedwig believes me dead, so there is no reason for her to 'feel' if I need her. She simply doesn't know yet that I didn't die." Hermione nodded at that, it made sense. There had always been a close connection between Harry and Hedwig.

"Harry, where will you stay?" Luna, as it appeared, had come out of her thoughts and voiced an important question.

"Good question. I don't know yet. I'm hoping I can ask the castle if there are any unused rooms around that I could use. Other than that, I'll see about renting a flat or something."

Before anyone else could say something else, a map appeared on the closest wall. It showed the floor where the Room was located and began mapping out a way to an empty room, like Harry just mentioned. A figure appeared near the door of the room and in a textballoon over it's head, the password was given. Then the map faded away again. Harry chuckled.

"Well, that's taken care of, it seems. Thank you." He aimed his thanks upwards. A tingle ran down all of their spines in respons to the thanks.

"What was that?" Neville asked, looking around to try and find the source of the wierd, but not unpleasant feeling. Murmers of agreement and question sounded from the rest of the assembled group.

"I'd have to say, the castle. It is, after all, sentient to a point." Harry voiced his opinion.

"Sentient?"

"Yes. But I'll tell you about it later, ok Hermione? Right now, I want to go see what my new quarters look like. Care to join me?"

Everyone extracted themselves from the way too comfy seats or rolled off the very enjoyable bed and followed Harry out and to his new living space. After a relatively short trip, they came to a pretty normal looking pillar. After giving the password, 'Horntail', the pillar rolled aside and Harry entered with the rest of his friends following closely behind. What they found, was a simple but cosy living room with a desk, chair and a couple of couches. A window looked out on the lake. A door led to a single bedroom, with shower and toilet separated by another door.

"Looks very nice. More than enough for what I need." He was going to say more, but a yawn from Ginny stopped him. As she began to blush in embarrasement, Harry grinned at her. "This might be a good time to wrap thing up for now. Come on, I'll put up some temporary wards and key you all into them so you can enter this room whenever you like."

Doing so, he erected some wards that would make anyone not keyed into them forget what they were going to do. He was biding his friends goodnight when Ron commented it seemed pretty empty and silent in the halls. Cursing, Harry hastly wove his hand in the air and disspelled his still active sleeping spell he'd cast in the Great Hall. Warning his friends that they had about 5 minutes before the rest of the castle would begin waking up, he urged them to quickly go to their dorms. In the Great Hall, people were beginning to stir, wondering why they were sleeping at their house table. After taking a quick shower, Harry got in his bed and went to bed, happy to have been reunited with his friends.

------

Ok, done with this one. Took me a while, but here it is. Reviews welcome, flames too if thought out.


	5. Chapter 5

Hey all. Here I am again. I thank all those who took the time to review. I appreciate it. And here's the next chapter

------

**A Different Path**

_Chapter 5_

Harry awoke from something prodding his magic. Frowning, Harry opened his eyes a bit, actually still being half asleep. He felt a gentle pressure against his mental shields, asking for entrance, or so it seemed at least. Waking up a bit more, he tried to identify the person who was pushing against his shields. With a bit of a shock, he discovered, or realized, he wasn't sure what, that it wasn't a person asking for entrance in his mind, but the castle itself. Having nothing against the castle, and feeling curious, he opened his shields just enough to grant access to his conscious mind. Immediately, a mental impression of his friends being escorted by McGonagall, and Flitwick, being Head of Luna's house. They were moving in the direction of the Headmasters office. Cursing, he got out of bed as fast as he could.

_'Crap, I should have known he wouldn't let it drop. Not being able to find me, he moves to my friends. Damn old man, you're far too nosy for your own good.'_

Harry hopped into his clothes, using a small wave of magic to 'comb' his hair while he was tugging on his pants. Finishing by tying his hair with his leather hair band, he got another impression from the castle, about his friend arriving in the office of the headmaster. Wasting no time, he focused on the ability he 'acquired' from a demon and shimmered briefly before fading from his room. He shimmered back to existence in a darkened part of the office, behind the headmaster. He kept quiet, masking his presence to all present in the room.

"Ah, good morning all. Lemon drop?" Albus Dumbledore greeted the five teens. All dressed in bathrobes, leading Harry to rightly believe they had been pulled from their beds before the rest of the students had to get up. They seemed very apprehensive about being there, no doubt having guessed this was not going to be a friendly get together. Nobody answered the headmaster's offer of a lemon drop, they just stood there, looking at him. Dumbledore sighed softly. Why did nobody ever want one of his lemon drops?

"Very well then. I gather you all know why you're here?"

"Because you want to know what Harry told us last night after he put the entire Hall to sleep." Hermione answered, being the unofficial spokesperson of the group.

"Indeed, I would be most grateful if you could tell me where Harry has been all this time. And why he seems to have decided to stop his schooling here at Hogwarts."

Hermione pondered on what to say. After all, Harry never really said where he'd been, because he feared, and rightfully so it seemed, that the headmaster was going to try to get the information from them. He also never said the actual reason why he wouldn't come to Hogwarts to follow lessons either.

"Harry never told us where he'd been the entire time, nor did he tell us why he's stopping school." She calmly answered.

A scoffing sound came from the headmaster's right, from Harry's PoV.

"Do you really expect us to believe that Granger? Do you take us for fools?" Came the sneering, unpleasant voice of Severus Snape. Harry hadn't know he was there, although it didn't really surprise him much.

"We know Potter must have told you his whereabouts, so you're going to tell us or you'll all be severely punished."

"Now, Severus, there's no need to get hostile. I'm sure Miss Granger will do what's right without the threat of punishment. Now, if you please, Miss Granger, we really must know where Harry has spent his time the past months. It's for Harry's safety, so that we can see if he was found by the Dark Lords followers."

Before Hermione or any of his friends could say anything else, Harry made his presence know. He did so by putting the blade of a very sharp looking curved sword against Snape's neck.

"I think that's quite enough. I clearly told you last night that I wouldn't discuss anything with you, and in my opinion, that also means you don't learn anything via my friends." Everyone gave a start at the sudden appearance, though Snape kept himself very still. His eyes shone with fury and hatred at Harry though.

"I will warn you again. Don't interfere with my life, or that of my friends again. If you do, I will cripple you, both magically as physically." Harry said in a no-nonsense tone of voice. Seeing Snape's hand inching to where his wand was in his robes, Harry addressed him.

"Don't move a muscle Snape. You don't have the speed or power needed to get away from my sword. I don't care if you're dead or alive, although I'd prefer you dead. But it's too early in the morning to begin cleaning my sword, so don't force me to do so later." To show he was serious, he put a bit more pressure on the sword, just enough to nick the skin of his throat. Snape grimaced as a drop of blood began to trickle down.

"Harry. Why are you doing this?" Dumbledore asked, looking older than he normally did. "We only want to help you."

"No, you don't. You don't want to help me, you want me back under your control, like any good weapon. Don't think I haven't seen through your plans old man. You don't care for me, never did. All you ever cared about, was me being your way to defeat Voldemort." Harry suddenly moved and stood between his friends. Before anyone could do something, a shimmering shield appeared around the group of youngsters. He looked at Dumbledore with contempt in his eyes and voice as he spoke. "You've been in power for far too long, old man. The people fighting this war have become pawns to you, to be used and sacrificed on your command. Everything is good enough to defeat Voldemort and his followers, with the exception of the deaths of those same followers. You think they'll come flocking to you once he's gone, to be redeemed into the light, but you have no idea what makes them tick, do you? They enjoy the feeling of power they have when they torture innocent people. They enjoy the fear they cause, they revel in it. And you're stupid enough to think you can bring them back. The crimes the committed alone are sufficient reason to get rid of them and make sure they can never hurt anyone again." Harry took a deep breath, ignoring Dumbledore as he attempted to talk again. "I refuse to be a pawn. I'll destroy Voldemort on my own. I already know how, I just need a little more time to prepare."

Harry turned to address his friends. "Everyone hold on to me, we're leaving."

"Harry..."

"For the last time old man, only my friends can call me that, and you're not one of them. Stay out of my life and you'll be fine. Interfere and pay the consequences."

Every one of his friends had grabbed hold of Harry by then. They'd kept quiet the entire time, preferring to see what was going to happen. After all, they hadn't been allowed to bring their wands, so they wouldn't be much help anyway. Just then, Snape had enough and shot a darker version of the stunning charm at Harry. It still caused the person to be rendered unconscious, but unlike the normal version of the charm, this one caused great amounts of pain before the victim was knocked out. Snape either forgot about the shield around the teens, or, more likely, thought himself strong enough to break through it. The spell hit the shield, sparked, and flew back the way it came, at twice the strength. Having no time to react, being in such small confines, Snape took the spell directly to the chest and screamed as the pain hit him for several long seconds before knocking him out.

Dumbledore looked on in a bit of a shock, both because his potions master would try to use a dark spell like that to subdue Harry, and the fact that the spell was so easily stopped and returned. After all, Severus Snape was a pretty strong wizard. Looking back to where Harry stood with his friends hands on him, he could see that Harry was amused by what just happened. It saddened him to know that the pain Severus had just experienced cause Harry any measure of joy. Obviously, that meant Harry was walking down a darker path.

"Tch, stupid ponce." Harry commented on the fallen wizard. He then looked back to Dumbledore. "You've been warned old man, and I won't warn you again. Stay out of my life."

Before the elder wizard could say anything, the group of teens shimmered and vanished from the office, leaving him stumped and shocked, looking at the empty spot.

---

The moment they rematerialized, Hermione let go of Harry and stood before him.

"But you can't apparate inside Hogwarts, it says so in 'Hogwarts, A History'!" She half-yelled, half-asked.

"Very true, so what does that tell you?" Harry calmly answered her. He'd brought them back to his room, seeing as no-one but them knew where it was anyway. Instead of Hermione, it was Luna who answered. She looked a little less spacey than she normally did.

"That we didn't apparate. It certainly didn't feel like we did."

Hermione turned to face Luna. "You know how to apparate? But they don't teach you until the year you're going to be 17."

Luna nodded. "True, but daddy is strong enough to dual apparate. That's how I know what it feels like." Hermione got an understanding look on her face, only to be replaced by a curious one moments later. Turning to Harry, she asked the question he knew was coming.

"Harry, if you didn't apparate, then what did you do?" The rest of his friends looked at Harry for an answer too.

"I shimmered." Internally, he smiled. He knew it'd rile her up if he kept his answers cryptic. She was so fun to rile up. Seeing that Harry wasn't going to elaborate, Hermione fumed.

"Harry..."

"Yes?"

"Aren't you going tell us what this 'shimmering' is?" She ground out, barely keeping herself from shaking him back and forth for keeping something she never heard of hidden from her. While outwardly, Harry seemed only faintly amused, inside he was howling with laughter at the look on Hermione's face. Deciding he should tell her, lest she get physical with him. Holding up his hands in surrender, Hermione noticed that once again he wore a black glove over his right hand.

"Fine, fine. You're not gonna let go till I tell you anyway. Have a seat, all of you." He said, waving a hand and creating a couple of comfy seats for everyone. Shocked at the ease he created the seats, his friends took a moment before they finally sat down. Harry was busy conjuring a quick breakfast for everyone, so he didn't notice their hesitation and shock. Finally he sat down too, motioning for them to eat up.

"During my time away, I learned a great deal about magic. One of those things, is that not all magic users use magic the same way. You see, they way they teach her at Hogwarts and in the other wizarding schools isn't the only way magic can be used, although I'm not even sure they know that... Anyway, there are a number of ways people can use magic, wiccan magic being the one I encountered that lead me to shimmering. Wiccan's, also called witches or wizards in their circles, don't use wands, but mostly use rhymes to focus the magic. The rhymes don't really matter, it's more the intent behind the rhymes that counts. Also, they seem to have an inborn active magical power. To use the sisters I encountered as an example, one sister, Piper, could freeze time locally or blow up things she concentrated on. The second sister, Phoebe, could levitate without outside assistance and from what I was told, she had visions of the future and sometimes the past too. Mostly those visions lead to someone who needed their help. The third and last sister, Paige, could teleport herself and anything she concentrated on to where she wanted. They called it 'orbing'. Given what her father was, she should be able to heal wounds too, but she hasn't been able to yet. Together, they were called the Charmed Ones, arguably the strongest witches, of the wiccan variety." Harry paused to take a sip of his juice.

"What does that have to do with the shimmering?" Hermione asked, getting impatient. While fascinating that other people used a different way to use magic, she was curious about this new kind of transportation that apparently had no problems bypassing anti-apparation wards.

"I'm getting there, keep your panties on. Now where was I? Ah, right. Well, being the Charmed Ones, they had this destiny to help the 'innocents' who needed their help. They did so, while trying to keep the existence of magic a secret. Now, on the flip side, you also have people who used the magic they had for evil, they were called warlocks. Then you had a whole collection of demonic beings who all tried to kill them so they wouldn't interfere with their plans. These warlocks and demons all have their own way of traveling, shimmering being most common with demons, and blinking mostly used by warlocks. There were other ways, but they were mostly used by a specific kind of demon or other supernatural being. Anyway, the sisters regularly came across demons and mostly vanquished them. When I visited, I noticed that they didn't have any kind of instant travel method, save for the third sister. On one occasion, I managed to separate the attacking demon from his powers before the sisters vanquished him. It took me a while, but I was able to find the specific bit of magic the demons used to shimmer. I successfully integrated into my own magic and so I now have the ability to shimmer like that demon could." He finished, quite curious about how they would react. So far, nothing had been said, but that wouldn't take long.

Everyone of his friends, save Hermione, was pureblood for several generations. They were naturally skeptic about the existence of demons or people who didn't use wands to perform magic. Sure, some witches and wizards could use a bit of wandless magic, but to use magic all the time without a wand? Hermione was more worried about the fact that Harry's ability came from a demon instead of something that could be learned by everyone.

"You're using dark magic to travel? Harry, what were you thinking? They could put you in Azkaban for the use of dark magic!" She nearly yelled.

"No, Hermione. You've got it wrong. Shimmering isn't any kind of dark magic. In fact, there is no real dark magic or light magic. It's all in the intention. Dark and light, just like good and evil, right and wrong, are all terms created by man. True, there are types of magic that are darker than others, but that doesn't make them evil. Even the Imperious curse or the Killing curse, both considered Unforgivable's, aren't really evil." He held up his hand to forestall any protests. "It's all in the intention. Say you're in a burning building, on the top floor. The only way out is to jump out of the window, but your friend is terrified of heights and doesn't dare jump. Putting him under the Imperious could potentially save his life. Likewise, a person suffering from an incurable disease in constant pain. If you use the Killing curse to relieve him of the suffering, that's not an evil deed. On the other hand, a spell to charm brooms to do your bidding could very well lead to the death of someone if it's used on a flying broomstick. Dark and light, good and evil, are all relative terms." Judging from the looks on their faces, none of them had ever considered things in that light before.

"Besides, the ability originally came from a demon but I now know how it works and I'm pretty certain I could teach you how to do the same. Same with the blinking used by the warlocks the sisters encountered. It's not because an ability is used by someone or something evil that that ability itself is evil. Besides, I plan to go back to the sisters someday to teach them how to shimmer or blink too. They'd be a lot safer if they could shimmer or blink out of the way of an incoming energy bolts or whatever they get shot with."

"So you're not turning evil?" Ginny asked, having lived in a pretty much black and white world of good and evil all her life. The examples Harry gave about the use of certain curses or charms had rocked her world view more than a little bit.

"Nope, but don't be surprised Dumbledore begins to spout I am, because I threatened Snape with a sword and because of my reaction when he zapped himself with that dark stunner. He'll no doubt try to use that as evidence that I'm going dark and need to be brought back to the right path. If you're not following him, then you're as bad as the Death Eaters in his eyes. Another reason I don't trust him anymore." Mindful of the fact that they did have classes, Harry waved his hand, a digital readout appearing in the air, showing the time.

"Alright, it's almost time for your classes, and seeing as you're still in your sleeping clothes, I'll drop you off in your common rooms. After your classes, you can come back if you want. No reason to get points docked because of me. And don't worry about getting pulled out of class or something like that. An eye is being kept on you." The last was said with a big grin on his face, making them wonder, and worry just a little bit what he meant by it.

Once again holding on to Harry, he shimmered straight to the Gryffindor common room first, dropping the majority of his passengers off there, waving to the others in the room. Then he shimmered away again, to drop Luna off at the door of her dorm room. Wishing her a pleasant day, he shimmered back to his own room, to finally get his shower.

------

There, that's it for this chapter. And no, it's not a crossover with Charmed, although I haven't run across one of those yet, strange as it may seem... He did meet them, but they won't appear in this story. Or that's the idea anyway. Who knows what might happen... I'll try to get the next chapter out a bit sooner. Review please! (Not yet beta-d)


	6. Chapter 6

Hey all. Here I am again. I thank all those who took the time to review. I appreciate it. But I would ask that those who do that the time to review put a tad more effort into it. While getting reviews is good, if they all basically say 'good, more', then it's almost pointless to review at all. I'd like a bit of comment on the story, what's good about it, what could be done better... How am I supposed to improve my writing if nobody tells me what I need to look after? I'm also gonna reveal the crossover in this chapter. Oh, and be sure to read the note at the end of the chapter too. On that note, on to the next chapter

------

**A Different Path**

_Chapter 6_

After his friends had left, Harry took a long, hot and best of all, relaxing shower. Dressed in a tank top and slacks, he wandered through his room to the table, absentmindedly drying his hair. Having a couple of hours before noon and thus lunch, he decided to work a bit more on his project. He'd spent a lot of time in the normal world while he was away, and learned a great deal from the non-magical people. It was truly amazing what they could accomplish, especially without magic to aid them. One thing he learned a lot about, was computers and the surrounding possibilities. The internet and email looked particularly interesting compared to the wizarding equivalent of giant libraries and owl post. Understanding the need for faster means of communicating, he'd decided to create a magical counterpart to emails. Learning as much as he could about how email and the transporting of it worked, he had a firm basis to build from. He'd been working on his magical mail version for about 5 months now, and he was confident it was near ready. Or ready enough to run a test very soon.

Calling on another piece of magic he'd learned to use, he opened his subspace pocket to retrieve his project. Two triangular pyramids, electric blue in color, appeared from seemingly nowhere. The sides were flat and a bit darker blue and if you looked a bit closer to them, you could see symbols written all over them. The symbols, called glyphs, looked like a mix of runes, japanese kanji and celtic script. The pyramids hovered for a moment, before floating down to the table. The project was nearly done. He only needed one more thing before he could test it. He was close, he knew he was. Notes were brought from subspace too, and soon Harry was immersed in the workings of his project.

Being immersed as he was, he didn't notice time passing as it did. He also didn't noticed when Ginny entered his room. Ginny had a free period now, and decided to see how Harry was. Making sure she wasn't followed, she'd made her way to his room and entered it as quietly as she could. Whatever she had been expecting, it was not what she found.

She found Harry standing at his table, strange blue pyramid objects sitting before him on it. That in itself wouldn't have been shocking, but what was shocking was his right arm. She couldn't contain a gasp when she saw it. Where there should have been a normal arm, there was an arm, made completely out of metal. His hand, underarm, elbow, upper arm and from what she could see visible from the top, a part of the shoulder, all of it was metal. A somewhat shiny gray metal arm, as if armored.

Harry heard the gasp and whirled around instantly. When he saw Ginny standing there with her hands before her mouth, obviously looking at his arm, he snatched the towel that still hung around his neck and magically wrapped it around his arm as fast as he could. The effort was too late of course, Ginny having already seen it. No longer seeing it, she looked up to meet his eyes, which were filled with shock and surprise.

"H...Harry?"

"Ginny? What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in class!" Harry exclaimed. He hadn't wanted his condition to come out this way. Ginny apparently got her wits together and answered his question.

"I've got a free period." She swallowed stronger than normal, and asked the question that was shooting through her mind. "Harry, what happened to your arm?"

Now, Harry was no fool. He knew he'd have to tell his friends about what had happened to him at some point. He'd only hoped it could have been on his terms and not nearly so soon. But he knew Ginny had seen his arm and also knew it would be better if he were truthful to her about it. He sighed deeply before he spoke again.

"You'd better take a seat, Ginny. This won't be easy to hear." He gestured to one of the seats he'd conjured earlier that day. He didn't take a seat, instead he started pacing, keeping his towel wrapped around the arm. Ginny took a seat, looking at Harry with questioning eyes. He was thankful that he couldn't see fear or anything similar in her eyes. He walked to her and dropped on his knees before her.

"Ginny, what I'm about to tell you, you've got to keep to yourself. I would have preferred to keep this to myself a bit longer, so that I could've told you about this on my own terms and when everyone was here so I wouldn't have to repeat myself. But you've stumbled across it now, and it wouldn't be fair if I didn't tell you about it. Just bear with me, ok?" Ginny just nodded, not making a sound. Harry didn't move from his spot either. He did, however, drop his gaze from her face to his towel-wrapped arm.

"I suppose the beginning of it all would be the accident." He sighed again, then shook his head to clear it, and continued. "The car of the Dursleys was hit by a truck, a bigger version of a car, used to transport lots of things all at once. It was a fuel truck. Both the car and the truck went off the road. The car tumbled violently and got pretty banged up. The glass on my side broke, and..." Here Harry had to swallow. The memories were far from pleasant.

"A shard of glass stabbed right through my shoulder." Ignoring Ginny's gasp, he continued. "It went all the way through, even through the bone. The Dursleys were still alive, but I can't remember what condition they were in, it's all pretty vague. I remember that I got out of the car, and was in a lot of pain. My arm was useless, I don't even know how I managed to get out of the car. I remember seeing the fuel tank from the truck burning and exploding. Then everything went black for a while. When I woke up, I was lying in a bed in a house I'd never seen before."

He looked at Ginny, seeing the horrified expression on her pale face. It was obvious that she hadn't expected a tale like this. He steeled himself to tell the rest.

"The rest I only know from hearing it told to me. An elder woman was in the room when I woke up. She explained to me that I'd been brought there by a man she couldn't describe. When I'd arrived, my arm had been ripped off, and I had several nasty cuts on the rest of my body. The man had requested I be fit with an automail, which is what they call the kind of limb like my arm is now. It's a fully functional, mechanical replacement for a lost limb."

At this point, he dropped the towel, once again revealing the metal arm.

"I won't explain how it works, that wouldn't help anyway. She told me that I would need some time to get used to having a mechanical limb instead of a real one. I hadn't really heard much from the normal world in some time, so I didn't question the existence of an invention like this. I was overwhelmed by the fact that I'd lost my arm and gotten a metal one instead. I passed out then. After I woke up again, I was introduced to the woman's granddaughter, Winry. She, like her grandmother, was an automail mechanic. She was the one who explained most of it to me in an effort to make me more comfortable with it. She didn't seem to understand why I wouldn't want an automail. But then again, she still had all her limbs, so she couldn't possibly know what it felt like." Harry gave a wry little smile at the memory of the blond haired teen mechanic. She loved automail, having grown up around them and seeing the happiness people felt when they had a functional limb again, but couldn't possibly understand what it was like to actually have one.

"It was only a couple of days later that I learned that I wasn't even on this world anymore." Again, Ginny gasped, this time in disbelief, but Harry simply continued talking. "The world was completely different from what I knew of it. Technology was way behind on some areas, yet so advanced on others. Anyway, I spent the next three months being rightfully depressed about Sirius, the loss of my arm, the fact that I wasn't even on my home world any more... The last two weeks I'd begun getting better, mostly thanks to Winry. It was a bit later that the same man who'd dropped me off came again, but if you don't mind, I'd like to save that part of the story until I can tell all of you at once. Agreed? " Harry finished his tale.

Ginny nodded. She would need some time to process all of what Harry had just told her. She needed something to take her mind of it for a while. She looked around in the room, trying to find something to talk about while Harry stood up and walked to where he'd dropped the coat he'd worn earlier that day on his little 'rescue' mission. Incidentally, he provided Ginny with the distraction she was looking for as she caught a glimpse of his upper left arm.

"Harry?" She asked, in a tone just a tad too sweet for Harry's tastes. He turned to look at her.

"Yes?"

"Is that a tattoo on your arm?" She asked in the same sweet tone. Harry's eyes dropped to the aforementioned arm and tattoo present there. He grinned, happy that it wasn't something embarrassing she asked. He walked back to her, allowing her to see it in greater detail.

"Yep. You like it?" He asked her, after she'd looked at it. Tattooed in his upper left arm was a black panther, who looked like it was moving when Harry rippled his muscles slightly. Ginny took a couple of moments to admire the detail of the tattoo, and, though she'd never admit it, his muscled arm and shoulder too.

"It's gorgeous." She whispered. Obviously, she was impressed.

"Yeah, I like it too. It's my animagus form, but for obvious reasons I can't transform at the moment." He said while moving his mechanical arm around.

"You've got an animagus form?" She looked up from the tattoo to his eyes, that looked so much more intense without the glasses to hide them.

"Sure. Every witch or wizard can become an animagus, it's just that most of them are too lazy to go through the process, which is pretty demanding. And muggleborn have spent the first 11 years of their life in the normal world, so the idea to take an animal form is usually somewhat scary to them. It's actually possible to learn to become an metamorphmagus too, but that's even harder. But once you manage to become one, all your kids will have the ability from birth. Kids with parents who're animagi usually have a bit of an easier time to learn it, but it's not that much different. Metamorphing is a whole lot harder, so those born with the ability have it easier." Harry'd stood up again, intent on putting on his jacket so he wouldn't be caught unawares again. Once was enough. "I've got another tattoo somewhere, but you'll have to undress me to find that one." He said with a laugh as he reached for his jacket.

But, like with most things in Harry's life, things weren't that simple. The moment Harry picked up his jacket, it lost it's texture and became an amorphous blob. Said blob then crawled all over Harry's arm, moving onto his torso and other arm until it had covered his entire upper body, leaving only his hands and everything above his neck visible. Then it gained form, specifically a V-neck sweater, and changed color to ivory white, contrasting with his dark slacks.

Is it any wonder Ginny was looking the proceedings with a slack jaw?

Sighing, Harry turned to look at Ginny again. "I supposed I'd best explain this too?" Ginny could only nod, jaw still hanging open slightly. Harry walked back, tugging on his glove while walking, and sat himself down in another of the seats. Reaching over, he gently closed her mouth, making her blush slightly.

"I think it'd be best to start with introductions. Ginny, meet Morph. Morph, meet Ginny." Seeing the confused look on the pretty redhead's face, he grinned. "Alright, so you've met Morph. Morph is a unique being, as far as I know. It's independent, but it's origins are somewhat... strange, even for the magical world. You see, before the accident, I had the metamorph ability. Meaning one of my parents, most likely my dad, was a metamorph too, although nobody seems to know it. It's possible that my dad didn't even know, cause not everyone with the ability finds out. Anyway, because of my arm, I can't use that ability anymore and it was extracted from my magic. We're not sure why, but for some reason, it gained physical form when it was extracted and it's been with me ever since. It can shape shift into anything it wants, though mostly it takes the shape of a piece of clothing that I wear."

"So, you can't use the metamorph ability anymore?" Ginny asked, intrigued by the strange life form.

"Not all of it was extracted, because that would have created an instability in my magical core and at the time, that couldn't be allowed. But what I can use is very minimal. Changing the color of my tan or my eyes I can do. I can change my hair color too, and even the length of it. Well, I can grow or shorten it a couple of inches, but that's it. It's all very minimal, compared to what a full metamorph like Tonks can do. For instance, I can't hold the changes while I'm asleep. Except for the tan for some reason, that doesn't change unless I want it too... Someone like Tonks could hold the changes for days on end, even while sleeping. I could compare myself to someone trying to learn how to be a metamorph and who's in the first stages of the learning process. It's too dangerous for me to be allowed more than that."

"How so?" Ginny asked, finding the subject fascinating. She was learning things she never heard of, and she was born in a magical family!

"Well, the automail is anchored to my skeletal structure. While the organic part of my body would have no problem shifting in shapes, the metal wouldn't make the shift with it and I could seriously injure myself like that. It's also the reason I can't transform to my animal form for now. Shifting right now would change my entire physical structure so much, that the anchors on my skeleton would be ripped loose, not to mention the tearing of flesh. Given the fact that the shoulder part is pretty large, the wound could very well be lethal. So you see why I can't change more than I can right now."

Ginny nodded, having grown a bit pale at the descriptions. "So you can't change to your animagus form? Ever?"

"Not now I can't, but I've been working on building another arm. I got the plans for it and I'm combining magic with the arm as I'm making it. Instead of steel, like my arm is now, I've gotten my hands on a fair amount of Mithril, a metal magical on its own. I'm nearly done with it, I've got all the pieces, but there's still a bit of work to do on the magical part of the thing and it needs to be assembled too. I think I'd best leave that to the experts though."

"You'll have to go back to where you got your original arm then." She stated.

Harry nodded. "Yeah. It's not something I'm really looking forward to. The process of attaching the nerves to the arm is really painful. But if I ever want to have a chance to use my animagus abilities freely, then I don't have a choice. Oh well, once it's done, it's done."

Not really knowing what to say, Ginny looked around the room again. And noticed the twin blue pyramids on the table. Not recognizing what they could be, and fairly sure Harry wouldn't let dangerous things just lie around, she stood up and walked over to the table to get a better look. She looked over the pyramids closely, noticing the strange symbols on their sides, but not recognizing any of them. Looking up, she saw Harry had joined her at the table, wearing a proud, yet mischievous smile on his face.

"Harry, what are these?" She asked, pointing at the as of yet unidentified pyramids. If anything, Harry's smile got bigger and the pride was shown more clearly on his face.

"Those, my dear Ginny, are Nexi." He could see that that didn't mean anything at all to the pretty redhead, so he had to elaborate. "They're the hart of a project I've been working on. An adaptation of a muggle system to the magical world. If it works, then it'll change life as wizards and witches know it."

Ginny sighed. Harry, it seemed, was acting far too chipper about this and she still had no idea what the things were. "Ok, fine." She sighed. "How will these things change the world?"

"Simple. If they work like I intend them too, they'll allow people to send mail to someone, who will get that mail moments later, no matter where he or she is in the world." He really enjoyed the stunned look on Ginny's face. Shaking herself, she managed a reply.

"B...but...that's impossible! You can't send mail from one end of the world to the other end in only moments, everyone knows that!" She exclaimed.

"Really? Muggles do it all the time. It's a quite common system known as email. They've been using it for a little over 2 decades. I'm trying to create a magical equivalent for that system. And I do believe I'm ready for a first complete test of the system." Ginny was alternating between looking at him and looking at the two pyramids on the table.

"Wanna help me test it?" He asked.

------

Ok, that's it for this chapter. As promised, I've revealed the crossover. For the non-anime fans among you, it's a crossover with an anime called "FullMetal Alchemist". Also, some of you might recognize the mmail system from Jeconais' story "This Means War!". The idea is his and I've gotten his permission to use the system. But seeing as I need to 'bring the system to life' compared to Jeconais having the system up at almost the same time muggles began to use it, my system will come with a bit of explanation. But that's for next chapter. Review!


	7. Chapter 7

Hey all. Here I am again. I thank all those who took the time to review. I appreciate it. But I would ask that those who do that the time to review put a tad more effort into it. While getting reviews is good, if they all basically say 'good, more', then it's almost pointless to review at all. I'd like a bit of comment on the story, what's good about it, what could be done better... How am I supposed to improve my writing if nobody tells me what I need to look after?

------

**A Different Path**

_Chapter 7_

The headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, also known to some as the leader of the Order of the Phoenix, had called for a meeting of that very Order. The reason for the meeting was the return of one Harry Potter, thought to be dead when he unexpectedly returned yesterday. But Harry had changed. He no longer seemed interested in following lessons at Hogwarts, and acted very hostile towards the esteemed Headmaster, even going as far as attacking him when he tried to bring Harry with him to his office. Conveniently, Albus neglected to think about the fact that the attack was a response to his attempt to stun him, even after the young man had said there would be consequences of attempting to force him to do anything.

Using the house that now legally belonged to Harry as a headquarters for the Order, he would explain to the members that could attend the meeting that they would need to do anything in their power to insure that Harry was brought back under their, and most importantly, his supervision. Too much depended on the young man, and it could not be allowed that he remain unsupervised.

Those able to attend the meeting were Remus Lupin, the Weasley parents Arthur and Molly, the Aurors Kingsley Shacklebolt, Nymphadora Tonks, and Alastor 'Mad-eye' Moody, and Hogwarts Potions Master Severus Snape. No one else had been able to make it on such short notice, but most of the core members were present, so it was sufficient. When everyone was seated, Dumbledore started the meeting.

"My friends, I thank you for coming on such short notice. I realise some of you had to make some last minute adjustments to the schedules you have, but the matter I called this meeting for is of the utmost importance."

"What happened Albus? Is someone hurt?" Molly Weasley asked, always concerned for the safety of people and her family.

"No Molly, nothing bad has happened. In fact, it's rather good news I have. You see, yesterday evening, during supper, we had an unexpected visitor. This visitor entered the great hall, unannounced. When he stopped near those of the children who went to the Department of Mysteries at the end of last school year, he revealed himself to be Harry Potter."

As expected this revelation brought about instant reactions from everyone. After the initial united front of disbelief Remus and Molly were asking if Harry was alright, Snape was scowling, Moody was demanding if he was sure it was him, Tonks was whooping with joy and Kingsley also asked if he was certain he was who he claimed to be.

"Please, settle down." Dumbledore said, while gesturing with his hand to calm them.

"I am positive he is who he claims to be and from what I could tell he seemed healthy. Unfortunately I do not have more information, because Harry refused to join me in my office to discuss things."

"What! But why would he do that?" Molly exclaimed.

"Because he's an arrogant, spoiled brat, just like his father. Always showing..." Severus Snape started, only to be stopped mid-rant as a silencing spell hit him. He turned to the caster, glaring furiously for daring to silence him. Remus put his wand away.

"That's enough Severus. We all know you don't like Harry because of what James did, and we all know that Harry is not an arrogant spoiled brat."

Those present were shocked that the mild mannered werewolf would react in such a way. Remus never lost his temper or raised his voice, yet now he'd silenced Snape without warning.

"Is it truly so surprising that Harry would no longer want to confide in you, Albus? After what you put him through last year? You basically abandoned him when he needed you most."

"Remus! How dare you accuse..." Molly began.

"And how dare **_you_** reprimand me like you would one of your sons!" Remus interrupted. "I'm a grown man who has a right to his own opinion and the right to express that opinion. I've kept silent for far too long about this." Having shocked Molly into silence, he turned back to Dumbledore.

"You barely talked to him all year, left him to be mocked and insulted by the media and his schoolmates, and did nothing to ease his problems with that horrible Umbridge woman. What you did do was order him to take lessons in Occlumency with Severus of all people. You know all too well that they don't like each other even remotely. But you didn't care about that, and you didn't even care to tell Harry why he should take the lessons. You just said he needed to take them and you expected him to follow orders as if he were nothing but a soldier."

Snape had reversed the silencing spell on himself by now and added his two cents to it.

"The brat was useless in the subject anyway Lupin. He didn't even manage the weakest of defences. He..." Once again, he was hit with a silencing spell. If looks could kill Remus would've been a cloud of atoms by then.

"Really, Severus? Tell me, how did you teach him? Did you explain to him what Occlumency entailed? Did you tell him how to prepare his mind so he could learn something about mental defences? Did you help him create said defences? Or did you say something like 'clear your mind' and then start to attack him with Leglimency to pick out the worst possible memories you could find? Knowing you and your petty ways, Severus, I'm willing to bet what little money I have on the latter. Do correct me if I'm wrong though. I'm a big enough man to apologise when I'm wrong."

"That is enough Remus. I'm sure Severus did what he felt was needed to teach Harry." Dumbledore interrupted. "Regardless of his teachings, we need to talk about what we must do to find out where Harry has been. I'm concerned that something or someone has tempted him to stand against the Order and what we fight for."

Before Dumbledore could continue however, Remus started talking again.

"Ah yes, the Order. You know, ever since the Department of Mysteries, I've been wondering what the Order is doing. I mean, exactly what has the Order accomplished since it was reformed?"

Kingsley Shacklebolt, who had been pretty much quiet till now, answered his question.

"We've captured several death eaters at the DoM. We..." but that was as far as he got.

"Really Kingsley? Because I was under the impression that it was Harry and his friends that took down those Death Eaters. All 'we' had to do was take them into custody. The way I see it, the Order has done nothing productive since it's re-formation. The only thing we seem to do is defend when they attack and do cleanup. True, we shadow known Death Eaters, but if and when we find some sort of information about a possible stronghold or gathering place for Death Eaters, we plan, we wait, we plan some more and we wait some more. By the time it's decided to actually do something, the information is so outdated that nothing comes of it. We arrive to do nothing more than defend and clean up the mess if there is any raid. The Order is supposed to fight against those who threaten the peace of the country. But we're playing defence and that's no way to fight a war."

"Remus, that is enough. The Order does valuable work in protecting the people of this land against those who seek to harm them. There will be no more of this. Now, we must decide what we will do to bring Harry back under our supervision so we can keep an eye on what he learns, so that he does not learn something he shouldn't. We must not allow him to fall to the dark arts. If needed, we must take direct control of what he is allowed to do." Dumbledore said to those present. Molly was nodding, the Aurors were looking like it made sense, and Snape was sneering.

Remus however, was positively furious.

"So you want to control him. If that is what this Order will be doing from now on, then you can take this as my resignation of it. I will not be part of any group that seeks to control Harry for _any_ reason."

"Remus, I cannot allow you to simply leave the Order. You know too much valuable information about its members and its activities." Dumbledore said to Remus, who stood up from his chair.

"You have no authority over me, Albus. I answer only to myself. Loyalty must be earned, but you have lost mine and you have lost me. And if you dare to try to restrain me in any way, I'll show you the physical advantages that come with lycanthropy. I've lost faith in you and your motives concerning Harry, Albus. I no longer trust you to do what is right for him. It seems to me that you want to win this war at any cost, even if it means forcibly taking Harry and transforming him into a mindless soldier to do your bidding. I want no part of this. Good day to you all." And with that Remus stalked out of the room, the front door slamming moments later with a telling finality.

The rest of those gathered were, once more, shocked that Remus would just up and leave the Order. Well, except for Snape of course, he was just glad that he was gone. Never-the-less, the things he'd said would make people like the Aurors think carefully. There had been a clear note of truth in much of what was said by Remus, and surprisingly little in what Dumbledore had said. Molly would think of how much Remus acted like a child that didn't get what he wanted and wouldn't even consider what he said. Arthur was disturbed by what had been said, but he trusted Dumbledore without question and was sad that Remus had left.

---

Back in the castle of Hogwarts, the person being discussed by the Order had no idea of them doing so. He was having too much fun looking at the shocked face of Ginny. Her mouth was opening and closing periodically, as if she wanted to say something, but couldn't decide on what to say. Finally, she just sighed.

"How can I help?" She asked. Grinning, Harry slapped his hands together and rubbed them gleefully. He held back on the 'evil maniac laugh' though.

"Well now, my dearest Ginny, I'm ever so glad for your help. So, we're getting ready to test out a potentially life changing device. How does that make you feel?" He asked, genuinely interested in the answer.

"Honestly, Harry, I have no idea. Can we just get on with this?"

"Sure, Gin. Sit, it'll be easier to write." He motioned to one of the seats at the table. Ginny sat, a bit apprehensive. She trusted Harry, she really did, but something that could change the world? That sounded so big...

"Alright. This is the first test of the system I've done, so I really have no idea if it will work at all. In theory it should, and everything works on paper, but reality isn't always that accommodating. I suppose the first thing I need to do is turn one of the Nexi on." Harry explained, having slipped into a somewhat lecturing tone.

"Only one? But you've got two of them..."

"True, but first I need to know if the system works if there is only one Nexus working. If it works to send messages within the confines of a single Nexus, then we test to see if it works across several Nexi. Ultimately, it's the goal to create a network of these." Ginny nodded, telling Harry she understood.

"Right then, lets see what happens when we turn it on." And backing up his words with action, Harry touched several glyphs on one of the pyramids. A small light from the inside of the pyramid sparked and began to gain brightness. It became alight with a soft light as it started to float and slowly rotate. The glyphs on the sides shone with a light of their own. Harry released a breath he'd been holding.

"Well, so far so good. Let's name it, shall we?" Not waiting for a response, he touched another glyph. Almost instantly, a small sheet of paper appeared in front of Harry. The piece of paper contained the following information.

_NEXUS IDENTIFICATION: __  
__ACCOUNTS ACTIVE: 0/10.000_

There was also a small sign, a triangle with a single line coming from each of the three tips that came together in the middle of the triangle. Another sign, a simple 'X' was present in the right upper corner of the paper.

"Cool." Harry was beaming. So far, everything had worked. Granted, nothing major had been done yet, but still, it worked so far. "Ginny, you need to remember the triangle sign. By drawing that on a piece of paper, and pouring some magic into it, you transform that paper into something you can send via mmail. But don't worry, we'll get to that in a bit. First, we need to give our nexus a proper name."

Harry then took a muggle ballpoint and wrote _"testnexus-1"_ next to the identification. He then tapped the triangle sign and watched as the paper rippled and the text he just wrote change to block letters. The paper now read:

_NEXUS IDENTIFICATION: TESTNEXUS-1 __  
__ACCOUNTS ACTIVE: 0/10.000_

"Ok, that seems to have worked... well, only one way to test it." Harry said, putting the paper a bit to the side. He then turned his attention to Ginny, who'd been looking at the proceedings with interest, despite her initial misgivings. "Now we need to activate an account, so we can use the nexus. I'll go first, so you know what to expect. Ok?" Ginny nodded.

Taking an empty scrap of paper, Harry began wrote a single line on it.

_ACCOUNT REQUEST FOR TESTNEXUS-1_

He then drew the triangle sign in front of his line. Looking at the paper, Harry steeled himself, and tapped the sign. The piece of paper rippled, and was still. Ginny, seeing that nothing had seemingly happened, waited a few beats, and was about to ask Harry if it worked, when the piece of paper grew bigger and the text on it changed. Leaning over to Harry, she read what it said.

_GREETINGS. I HAVE RECEIVED A REQUEST FOR AN ACCOUNT ACTIVATION. IF THIS IS INCORRECT, SIMPLY TAP THE 'X' IN THE UPPER RIGHT CORNER OF THE PAPER. IF THE REQUEST WAS CORRECT, PLEASE COMPLETE THE FORM BELOW._

_NAME: ... ... ... ... ... ... ...__  
__DESIRED MMAIL-ADDRESS: ... ... ... ... ... ... ...!TESTNEXUS-1_

___PLEASE PRESS YOUR THUMB TO THE CIRCLE BELOW. YOU WILL FEEL A PRICK AND A DROP OF BLOOD WILL BE LEFT IN THE CIRCLE SO YOUR MMAIL-ADDRESS CAN BE LINKED TO YOUR MAGICAL SIGNATURE. WHEN EVERYTHING IS DONE, TAP THE TRIANGLE SIGN._

Harry looked ready to burst from joy and quickly filled in the blanks. He then pressed his thumb (left one, obviously) to the circle and indeed felt a tiny prick. When he lifted his thumb again, a drop of blood was inside the circle. Nearly bouncing on his seat, he tapped the sign and waited. The paper rippled again and it vanished. A second ripple caught Ginny's eye as the paper that had first appeared for Harry rippled. The line 'Active Accounts' now read 1/10.000.

"Look!" Harry yelled, catching her attention. Ginny looked, and she saw a tattoo-like representation of the triangle appear on Harry's left hand. What she could not see was the appearance of a transparent little envelope over the triangle on Harry's hand. Nor could she feel the slight vibration that went through his hand when the envelope appeared. Tapping the little envelope, it faded, but instead of a physical piece of paper appearing before Harry, an illusion of one hovered before him.

_FROM: TESTNEXUS-1__  
__TO: HARRY.POTTER____!TESTNEXUS-1_  
_SUBJECT: ACCOUNT ACTIVATION _

_CONGRATULATIONS. YOU NOW HAVE AN ACTIVE MMAIL ACCOUNT WITH THE "TESTNEXUS-1" NEXUS. INFORMATION ON HOW TO USE MMAIL IS PROVIDED FURTHER DOWN IN THIS MMAIL. PLEASE READ IT CAREFULLY. TO CLOSE THIS MMAIL, TAP THE 'X' IN THE UPPER RIGHT CORNER. TO PRINT THIS MMAIL ON PAPER, TAP THE BOOK SYMBOL. BE CAREFULL WHEN PRINTING MMAILS ON PAPER, BECAUSE THIS USES YOUR PERSONAL MAGIC TO CONJURE PERMANENT PAPER FOR THE MMAIL TO BE PRINTED ON REGARDLESS IF YOU KNOW HOW TO CONJURE OBJECTS._

Following this was a long text on how to use mmail. Harry was jumping around in the room, whooping his head off. Reaching Ginny again, he plucked her of her chair and hugged her close.

"It works!" He said. Suddenly, he remembered that they weren't quite done with the testing yet. Ginny was dropped, gently, back in her chair and Harry quickly put a piece of paper in front of her and handed her the ballpoint.

"Alright Gin, your turn. Remember what to do?" Nodding, she wrote the same line for an account request on the paper, a bit clumsily at first, not used to the muggle-style writing tool, but she soon got the hang of it. Finishing her drawing of the sign, she looked at Harry to confirm she did it right. Harry nodded and said to tap the sign. So she tapped.

A few minutes later, Ginny saw the triangle appear on her right hand and felt the light vibration as the little transparent envelope appeared. Harry, being able to see magic in ways normal wizards and witches could not, saw the envelope and told Ginny to tap it to activate it. The same mmail as Harry had received opened up, with the only difference being the mmail address Ginny had chosen. Glancing at the paper on the table, she saw that there were now 2 accounts active.

"Ok, you'll have to read the manual on how to use it, but a couple quick things to help you on the way. First, thinks of the tattoo becoming invisible will render it invisible. Shocking, no? Second, nobody can see the envelope appearing when you receive a mail, nor can they really feel the vibration that goes with it. But they can read your mails when you open them, unless you think about wanting privacy to read your mail. That will open the mail, but in a way only you can see it. Well, you and people like me who can see magic. Those are the most important things right now."

Ginny nodded to show she understood. She tapped the X on her floating illusion of a letter and it faded away. Harry however, had tapped the book symbol before the X, and now a stack of paper sheets was rapidly appearing on the table.

"The stack of papers is for you. I already know how the system is supposed to work, as I made it. But there's one more thing we have to test before we can call it a true success. We have to try to write a mail to each other. Nexus to account works and vice versa, but now we've got to try account-to-account communication. I'll start."

Harry hadn't made his sign disappear, and he tapped the bottom left corner of the triangle. A few moments later, a sheet of paper appeared.

_FROM: HARRY.POTTER__!TESTNEXUS-1 __  
__TO: ginny.weasley____!testnexus-1 mask: Pretty redhead_  
_SUBJECT: test_

_Hey Gin. First test to see if the mailing system works._

_Harry_

Tapping the triangle, Harry watched in anticipation as the short note vanished. A few moments later, a little envelope appeared over Ginny's hand, accompanied by a vibration. Watching anxiously as Ginny tapped it, the note came visible. It was almost identical to what he'd sent, with a few differences.

_FROM: HARRY.POTTER__!TESTNEXUS-1__  
__TO: Pretty redhead_  
_SUBJECT: test_

_Hey Gin. First test to see if the mailing system works._

_Harry_

Ginny's mmail address had been replaced by the mask he had defined. That little feature didn't really have much functionality, but he'd put it in as a challenge to himself. Also different were the boxes 'Reply' and 'Forward' that stood above the rest of the mail. The apparent functions of those boxes were pretty obvious, so she tapped the reply box. As a result, a new sheet of paper appeared before her.

_FROM: GINNY.WEASLEY__!TESTNEXUS-1 mask: Flattered __  
__TO: HARRY.POTTER____!TESTNEXUS-1 mask: Green eyed genius_  
_SUBJECT: RE: test_

_Hello Harry. Your test was successful and I must say, I'm very impressed with it._

_Ginny_

As Harry had done, she tapped the sign to send it away. And as had happened with her, moments later, Harry received his mail notification. After opening it to see that it was what Ginny had sent, he jumped up from his seat and began dancing a very silly jig around the room. He was about to pull Ginny off her seat to join him when they heard the chime signalling the change of classes.

Cursing, Ginny leapt up from the seat and grabbed her book bag.

"I'm really sorry, Harry, but I've got to get to my next class. I'm going to be late as it is. I'll see you later, ok? Bye." She said, rushing to the door. Harry didn't have a chance to reply before she was out the door and racing down the hallways to get to her next class. Amused at the situation and still very happy that his system worked, he sank himself in one of the comfortable couches and allowed himself to relax.

------

There. That's it for now. Please review and tell me what you think of it. Again, the mmail system originated from Jeconais' 'This Means War' and I've got his approval to use it.


	8. Chapter 8

Hey all. Here I am again. I thank all those who took the time to review. I appreciate it a lot. Even those who just say they want more. :)

------

**A Different Path**

_Chapter 8_

---

Weasley Wizard Wheezes. That was the name of the newest shop in Diagon Alley. It was pretty successful too, as the items they sold were new and innovative, compared to the products of the other joke shop in the Alley, Zonko's. Run by fun-loving and friendly redheaded twins, it had rapidly become a success. The twins, Fred and George Weasley, of a financially poor family, were making money hand over fist with their sales.

A stroke of luck had them starting up the shop sooner than they would have expected. While Harry's money had been enough to get started, it wouldn't have been enough to cover all expenses once the shop had opened. But, the infamous Ludo Bagman had been arrested some time ago, and the twins had been able to get the money back that they had bet on the Quidditch World Cup championship. And a fair amount of their winnings too, though they hadn't managed to get the entire sum from him. So, with this additional money in their pockets, they could open the shop earlier than anticipated.

And, to top things off, they had managed to snag a very good employee. A notorious prankster in his day, for those who knew it. While initially it was a bit strange that the elder Remus Lupin was working for the much younger twin brothers, the three of them soon had everything running smoothly. The brothers had heard Remus address the notorious Sirius Black as 'Padfoot' and had cornered the both of them and pried the story from them. They knew of Remus' difficulty in keeping a job for any length of time due to his 'monthly problem', a.k.a his lycanthropy, and had promised him a job once they could open the shop. Of course the proud werewolf tried to decline, wanting no pity from anyone, but the twins had been most persuasive. In the end, he had accepted the job and had come to find that they hadn't given it to him out of pity, but that they really expected him to do what they paid him for. He had always enjoyed thinking up pranks in his schooldays. And now he could do it again, and get paid for it. Life was good now, or as good as it got with most of those he cared about dead.

The twins had also taken the death of their young friend Harry quite hard. After all, he had been the one to provide the original investment money needed to open their shop, believing they could succeed where others thought they couldn't. Not even their own mother had had faith that they would succeed. Having seen all the money they made, she had of course been made to review her opinion, but that didn't take away the fact that Harry had believed in them more than she had. They had wanted to make something to remember him by, but they also knew he didn't like his fame so they decided not to use his image or name in some sort of product. In fact, they were trying to get the rights on his image and name, if only to prevent it being abused. So instead, they went to Hogwarts resident photographer, and bought a picture of Harry with all his friends together, framed it, and hung it in their shop. Underneath it they wrote, 'In memory of absent friends'. Once, the youngest Malfoy had come in the shop, to laugh at the efforts the twins and their pet werewolf were doing. They'd let the insults slide, paying little to no attention to the brat, until he decided that it would be a good idea to insult Harry. The young aristocrat had ended up outside the shop, hexed into a state that had taken the best in St. Mungos 6 hours to undo the effects of. Charges had been tried to be pressed, but with the elder Malfoy a proven Death Eater the credibility of the younger had been much doubted. In the end all the shop had gotten was a warning not to do it again.

Present day though, school had started and business had slowed down because of it. Remus had left for an Order meeting, but the twins declined to attend, having a business to take care off. And besides, it wasn't as if anything of importance would be talked about, or achieved. The twins had begun to see that the Order was nothing more than wishful thinking of those wanting to do something. For all the Headmaster's words and speeches, they had nothing to show for their efforts. At the moment the shop was empty, but the twins were busy anyway. Fred was checking the inventory while George was tinkering with unfinished new inventions, so they filled their time quite well. The doorbell tingled, alerting Fred to an arrival in the shop. Looking up, he saw a person with his, or at least he thought it was a him, back to him. Long black spiky hair pulled in a ponytail, a muggle headcap, one he knew to be associated with a sport, but like many things muggle he couldn't remember the name of the sport. About 5ft 8-5ft 9 if he had to guess. It looked like he was just browsing, so Fred let him. The twins had learned early on that being too eager to sell something wasn't all that good. You had to give the clients time to look for a few minutes before asking if they needed help. As such, Fred went back to his inventory and missed the newcomer looking at the photograph and the scripture under it. Nor did he see the smile that came to his face when the stranger read the phrase. Finishing with the shelf he was doing, he put away his list and turned to the potential customer.

"Hello sir. Can I help you?" He asked.

Said potential customer turned around when Fred spoke and used a finger to lift the flap of his cap, revealing piercing emerald eyes.

"Why yes, I do believe you can help me." Harry said, much enjoying the shocked look on the single twin's face.

"Ha...Harry?" Fred stammered out, feeling faint. When Harry nodded, Fred did the only think he could. He bellowed for his brother.

"GEORGE!"

For a few moments it remained silent, then running footsteps could be heard from the backroom. The door swung open forcefully and George came out with his wand drawn, ready to defend his brother from whomever or whatever made him yell for him. Seeing a smiling Harry Potter near his brother however, was not something he had counted on. Unable to keep his wand up due to shock, his arm dropped down limply.

"Ha...Harry?" He managed to stutter, unknowingly echoing his brother. In response, Harry grinned and opened his arms as if to show it really was him.

"The one and only." Harry was enjoying this very much. "As always, reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated." And he continued to grin like a lunatic as he was bear hugged by the overjoyed twin brothers. The hugging only lasted a few seconds though, before they let go and started dancing an abundant jig together, much to the continued amusement of Harry. Then, as if someone threw a switch, both twins sharply waved their wands at the door, one brother closing it, the other flipping the 'open' sign around. Then, they grabbed a still amused Harry under the armpits and physically dragged him to the chamber in the back, where they dumped him in a chair, quickly provided him with a big pint of butterbeer, took a pint for themselves and sat down across from him with expectant looks in their eyes.

Snickering, Harry looked at them. "Yes, I'm alive, and no, I'm not gonna tell you the story just yet. I'll tell it when everyone can hear it all at once. But," he interrupted, "I did come here for a reason."

Waving his hands over the table, he brought out the second Nexus he had created.

"Gentlemen. Meet the future."

---

Hermione couldn't concentrate. Her mind kept drifting back to Harry and his return. And to how the Headmaster had been acting. He certainly hadn't been acting like he should. It seemed there was at least some truth about what Harry had been saying about him. And Harry...How he had changed. So much stronger, and more knowledgeable. It might be wrong to say wiser, as he still wasn't that old, but he sure seemed to think more than he did before.

She hadn't really realised how much she had missed him, until she saw him again. In truth, she had been attracted to both Harry and Ron for some time, but when she was with Ron for that short period of time she knew it was only a physical attraction to him. She still felt the same, but now she knew that it would never be more than that. She wasn't sure if she wanted to try and find out if the attraction she felt for Harry could be more than the physical kind, but at least she had a chance again if she wanted to find out.

She briefly wondered why he wore the glove on his right hand though. He hadn't done so even when he had the scar from that horrible Umbridge woman. She didn't know why he would wear a glove, unless it was to hide something. But if he hadn't hidden the Blood-Quill scar, which he had hated with a passion, then what could be bad enough that he chose to block it from view.

Most of all, she was just glad he was back with them. He had been one of the very first people she could truly call a friend. In primary school she had been seen as boring, because she honestly liked to read and learn things. Then, when she started at Hogwarts, she wanted so much to be a good witch, because she came from a non-magical family, that she became even more studious, even if she didn't always like the subject very much. A lot of people only saw her studying hard, and didn't consider that even she didn't like every subject there was. That studious-ness shifted into overdrive to compensate for the lack of knowledge of magic she had compared to those of magical descent, and made her unpopular with the others who just wanted to learn a bit of magic, and not do too much work. Then Ron's comment about her having no friends, while true, broke her resolve to ignore the whispers. The rest, as they say, is history. So Harry became one of her first, if not the very first, friend. Ron had been something of a friend by default, as he was Harry's friend at the time.

She sighed. Could this hour go any slower? The minutes seemed to crawl by, keeping lunchtime at bay. She had no doubt that Harry would join them for lunch, or perhaps they would join him in his room. It would certainly be a lot more private that way. She wanted to get to know this Harry more. No doubt that he could teach them all a lot, given what he'd shown and told already. And still sixteen of these long minutes to go. It wasn't as if she didn't understand this part of Arithmancy yet anyway. Hermione prided herself on the fact that she always kept a chapter, at the least, ahead of the level in class. But at times like these, she wished she didn't already know what they were seeing. It made for such a boring wait. And could they really not have found a better temporary substitute than the old man that was wheezing his way through his explanation? It sounded as if the poor man could drop dead at any given moment. Still fifteen minutes left before lunch...

---

Suddenly the door leading from the shop area to the private slammed open to admit a stormy looking Remus Lupin. It smashed against the wall behind so forcefully that the glass in the door shattered, crashing to the floor loudly.

Remus made a sound that may or may not have been an actual growl, but was in any case definitely very frustrated, as he turned to administer a quick reparo without even glancing at the occupants of the room.

"Sorry about that." He said with enforced calm, turning to properly look at the room. Harry watched with a neutral mask on his face as his ex-professor first noticed the presence of someone other than the twins, and then almost instantly recognised who he was. He was on guard and had braced himself mentally for anything, as he really wasn't sure how his godfather's best friend would react to him. He couldn't forget that the man was an Order member, and had served under Dumbledore in the first war as well as now.

"Harry…" It was breathed more than spoken, and although not an actual question Harry gave a small nod to dispel any lingering doubt in the man's mind. It was at that moment hard to remember that for his friends it had only been two months since he'd left, for Lupin looked so…washed out perhaps, as though years had passed for him too.

Remus closed his eyes briefly, and gave a short laugh that probably came out darker than he'd intended, as he ran a hand through his hair before clearing his throat and speaking again. "Harry, it's good to see you. How have you been?"

"Fine. And yourself?" He answered politely, still waiting for some indication as to what camp Remus would be in- for him, or against him. He relaxed somewhat as the man gave him an ironic smile, raised eyebrows indicating his doubt as to the accuracy of that answer.

"About the same, perhaps." He replied, closing the repaired door gently. It only now penetrated his conscious mind that the shop area had been empty, though to be honest he hadn't noticed that detail when he'd first made his entrance.

With a meaningful glance at Harry, George (or was it Fred?) asked, "How was the meeting?"

Remus gave a soft snort. "You mean the Very Urgent Meeting of the Most Esteemed and Very Important Order of the Flaming Big Bird? That meeting?"

The twins shared a surprised look at their associate's uncommonly sarcastic and mocking tone, while Harry allowed himself to show his confusion. Remus rummaged through a cupboard under a counter until he found where he'd shoved his hastily abandoned lunch, then leant back against the shelving beside it.

"Great, it went great." He sighed.

Instantaneously George hopped up to sit facing Remus on the table between them, while Fred switched to sit on the vacated chair, closer to Remus and the latest Order gossip. "Spill." They commanded. "What happened?" Fred added.

Remus' lips twitched, though he kept his eyes on unwrapping his half-sandwich and casting a general detection charm for magical tampering on it. Harry had to grin at that, as it obviously had to become a habit second to breathing for anyone who spent considerable amounts of time around the twins.

Satisfied his food wasn't going to suddenly try to eat him instead, he took a bite, swallowed, and answered. "Well, first off we were informed of your return Harry."

"Who's we?" Harry cut in, determined to get as much information as he could during this opportunity.

"Your parents," Remus gestured with his free hand towards the twins, "Kingsley, Nymphadora, Moody, and Snape." He took another bite before continuing, "Then Albus continued to recount to us your very rude refusal to have lemon drops and tea with him."

"And what did you think of me for that?" Harry asked him, deliberately keeping his tone light so as to not show how important the answer would be to his future relations with the man.

Remus however was not fooled, and looked up to make eye contact for the first time. "I told him I wasn't surprised."

Harry's eyes widened perceptibly in surprise. He didn't need legilimancy to see the concern Remus had for him. Not concern for the weapon to defeat Voldemort, or concern of his growing power, but concern for himself, just Harry, and his welfare.

He grinned and finally fully relaxed his guard. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Remus replied with a soft smile.

"That's so beautiful." Fred 'sniffled'.

"Heart warming." His twin agreed, wiping away an imaginary tear.

"Touches you deep inside."

"So tender and moving."

"Shut it you two." Harry laughed, before they could get truly carried away. "What did Dumbledore say then?"

"He brushed me off when I raised concerns about his treatment of you these past years. I'm afraid harsh words were exchanged with your mother boys."

The twins shrugged, knowing that Remus would never have been unforgivingly rude. "It happens."

"She'll come around."

Remus pulled a face, doubtful of his chances at being invited to dinner any time in the near future, then continued his summary of the meeting. "Chewed out Snape while I was at it."

"Ew." George immediately piped up.

"Gross." Fred agreed.

"I thought you didn't-"

"Like greasy food-"

"Moony."

"That's why I spat him out again." Remus replied drolly, with a roll of his eyes. Harry stuck out his tongue in disgust at the mental images. "And then, Albus started to insist that it was imperative that we now keep you under lock and key, regulating what you know and do. My protest was overridden, and so I did the only thing that seemed right. I left."

"You left?" Harry repeated, hoping for further clarification.

"I quit the Order."

"No way!" Fred and George exclaimed in unison. Remus chose to finish the last bite of his lunch rather than answer. Harry frowned, considering this new information.

"We knew you weren't exactly happy with the Order."

"But we didn't think you'd actually have the guts to leave."

"And I didn't think you two would have the guts to tamper with my food after the tights and underwear incident, but obviously I was wrong too." Remus answered without missing a beat. "Now kindly remove the cow horns from my head."

"It's not our fault!" Fred grinned, not bothering to hide the mischievousness of it.

"They warn us all the time." George added with an identical grin.

"You are what you eat!" They chorused together.

Harry groaned, and with a wave of his hand dispelled the horns.

"Right. Guys, tell Remus about the nexus and what it does, I'm going back to Hogwarts to have a nice lunch with my friends before the old man tries to accost them again. I swear, he's dumb enough to keep trying." Harry said to the sniggering twins, and with a final wave goodbye, he shimmered out.

Remus looked at the spot Harry had been standing just moments before, then at the twins, who were looking very impressed. Shaking his head at the general weirdness that seemed to surround Harry Potter, he started to question them about whatever that pyramid-thingy was till late in the night, which eventually ended with a very annoyed m-mail from Ginny, telling the three of them to finally leave her alone so she could sleep. It seemed she had yet to find the 'off' command...

------

Done for this chapter. Hope you liked it and if you did, please leave a review.


	9. Chapter 9

Hey all. Here I am again. I thank all those who took the time to review. I appreciate it a lot. Even those who just say they want more. :)

------

**A Different Path**

_Chapter 9 _

---

In a location unknown to anyone but those who already knew the about it, the man, if he could still be called such, who once was called Tom Marvolo Riddle, had called a meeting with his followers. Almost all of them were present in his company once more, after a highly successful raid on the prison of Azkaban a month ago, where he had easily freed most of his Inner Circle. He had only lost two in the breakout; such was the price to pay for victory.

But now he felt curiously…restless. An ominous feeling had taken hold of him the past few days, and although he had it almost completely suppressed, there were moments that it was strong enough to chill him to the core. He did not know what the feeling was as he had to rely on external sources of information. It was, after all, beneath a Dark Lord to do his own spying.

Privately of course, he admitted that he had become just a tad too inconspicuous. But that certainly didn't mean he would allude to his ignorance in this matter to his followers. He had an image to protect, after all.

"My friends," he began, although they were nothing of the sort, "we grow in power every day. Each day that passes we drive fear into the hearts of those who would consort with filthy mudbloods and disgusting blood traitors. Soon, we will gain control of England, and after that, we will set to conquer the entire world!"

Approving murmuring ran through the assembled crowd, nobody foolish enough to actually cheer out loud. They all knew that the temper of their lord was sometimes volatile.

"But first let us concentrate on England. McNair, what news have you for me regarding the werewolves?" The called Death Eater bent on one knee and bowed his head.

"My Lord, several packs of werewolves have agreed to join you. Others are still undecided, but are leaning towards joining our cause. Only a few small packs have refused to join."

The news caused Voldemort to nod slowly, pleased that his army grew stronger with each addition. Those few would did not join him would eventually learn that nobody crossed him, and lived to tell about it. "Very well. Keep working on the doubters. But if they do not join with us they shall soon be crushed. Malfoy, what news of the school?"

Lucius Malfoy, father to the equally blond and arrogant Draco Malfoy, dropped to his knee and bowed his head, noticeably deeper than McNair had. Voldemort frowned. This meant the blonde had news he would not like to hear.

"My Lord, I fear I must be the bearer of bad news. I had not believed it myself at first, but it has been confirmed by several others who have children in the school loyal to our cause." Malfoy began.

Voldemort's red eyes gleamed with irritation. "Lucius, do not test my patience. Bring your news and do not delay any longer!" Lucius visibly flinched at the tone, but steadied his nerve.

"Forgive me, my Lord. It appears the reports of Potters death were inaccurate." At this, Voldemort sat straighter on his throne. "My son has reported to me that the Potter boy has returned."

Lucius had been right; he did not like the news he had been brought. Not letting the surprise at this proclamation show, Voldemort crafted a knowing look.

"So, it appears I was correct when I sensed the link between us return to life. What other news did your son have to report?" Of course, he had not felt a peep from said link since it had been severed. This would have to consider the possibility that the boy had successfully learned some Occlumency, and was managing to shield his presence from him. Well, he would simply have to tear down whatever weak defences the boy had managed to erect and wrench the information about Potter's whereabouts these past months directly from his mind.

"It seems that the Potter boy has lost his faith in Dumbledore. According to my son, he actively refused to accompany the muggle-lover to a private location to speak about where he had been. It also seems that Potter has decided that he will no longer continue his education at Hogwarts, a decision which has caused Dumbledore to become worried. Soon after, my son says that he and the rest of the school were placed under a sleeping spell and that when they woke up, Potter and his friends were gone."

Voldemort absorbed this information. A breakup between the old man Dumbledore and his Golden Boy? This was certainly unexpected, but perhaps he could turn this to his advantage. See if he could tempt the boy to join his side, supposedly as his equal. In actuality, it would be far easier to kill him if he did.

"This is worthy news indeed. Very well Malfoy, tell your boy to continue his spying and have him report daily to you. It appears that at least your son has some brains."

To his credit, Lucius didn't show his anger at being compared unfavourably to his own son. The meeting lasted some time after that, but Voldemort paid only the least bit of attention, his mind going over the information he had received about Potter.

---

Harry reappeared in his room at Hogwarts, a few minutes before lunch would begin. He hadn't come straight from the twin's shop though. He'd done some thinking before returning to the castle. Something Remus had said had made him remember bits of his time when he first lost his arm, and had gotten his replacement. Realisation had unwillingly come to him, and he now knew he had to talk to the old man. He didn't like it much, but he knew it would clear the air somewhat, and perhaps even keep his friends free from any meddling by way of the headmaster. Resigned to the fact that it would have to wait just a bit longer, he set towards the Great Hall to have lunch with his friends.

Entering the Great Hall, he was somewhat surprised that Dumbledore wasn't even at the teacher's table. Shrugging, as it didn't really matter much, he joined his friends and ate lunch with them, talking about anything and everything that came up. He noticed that Hermione seemed to glance at him every time she thought he wasn't looking. Subtly, he checked himself over to see if something was wrong with his clothes or something like that. He saw nothing, but decided not to make an issue of it.

Too soon for the likes of Hermione, lunch was over and they had to return to classes. Or they would have, had Harry not quietly whispered for them to join him in his room and then walked away. Where she would have been torn between going to class and following him only months before, Hermione for one didn't need any more urging. Having admitted to herself that she would like a chance to see if something more could grow between Harry and her, she needed little reason to be close to him. Ron was only too happy to have extra free time, while Luna hoped she would learn something more about her newly discovered gift. Neville was somewhat nervous about skipping class, but went with them anyway, and Ginny was wondering if he'd show the rest of them about his magical mail system.

Upon entering his room, Harry was already waiting in his comfy chair.

"Ok kiddies, today we're learning the flash step." Harry announced once they were all inside, rubbing in his hands with a far too gleeful look on his face.

Hermione's brow furrowed. Harry hadn't used that term before, so she did what was natural for her. She asked.

"Harry, what's this flash step? I don't recall you talking about that before."

"That's because I've never talked about it before." Was suddenly whispered directly in her ear by Harry's voice. And lo and behold, Harry was no longer sitting in front of them, like he had been moments before. No, right now he was directly behind Hermione, with his hands lightly placed on her waist. Hermione gasped, whether from the voice in her ear or the hands on her waist Harry didn't know. She wasn't the only one gasping though. She quickly turned around to look at Harry, but halfway before she could complete that turn, the hands on her waist and the presence behind her vanished. Completing the turn, Harry was gone. Looking around the room, she found him lying on top of his drawer, head resting on his hand, smiling down at them.

"The flash step is the ability to move faster than the untrained eye can see." Harry explained. Then he suddenly vanished again, and a moment later reappeared sitting in his comfy seat. "It's a rather short range ability, but from what I was taught, someone who masters the move can travel over five hundred meters in a single 'step'."

His friends were suitably impressed. Ron looked particularly giddy, probably thinking about the twins who'd be green with envy when he used that trick to get away from them. Ron, of course, didn't know Harry fully intended to teach the twins the same technique. Hermione, ever the knowledgeable, frowned.

"I can't remember ever reading about anything like it. As far as I know, the only ways of long distance travel are floo, portkey and apparation. I've never come across anything called flash step before."

"Heh, I'd be very surprised if you had, seeing as it's a muggle technique to begin with." Now that got their attention.

"What! B-bu-bu... but muggles don't have magic! They can't have made that move!" Ron near yelled.

"Ron, not everything in this world is magic. True, muggles don't have magic, but some muggles, usually martial artists, have learned to use their own life energy. They can use it to enhance their body and what they can do. On my travels I've seen a martial arts master literally punch through stone walls with no damage to their hands whatsoever. Don't be like any other pure blood wizard, Ron. Don't underestimate muggles." Harry said to his friend, frowning as he did so. Even though Ron was his friend, he tended to disregard non-magical folk as unimportant and stupid, even when he knew next to nothing about them.

"Ron, quick question, but did you even know that muggles put a man on the moon a couple decades ago? When was the last time a wizard stood on the moon?"

"That's impossible. Everyone knows there's no air in space, so you can't go to the moon." Ron said with such conviction that it hurt Harry to see his fellow wizard so ignorant. He sighed and shook his head.

"Actually Ron…" Hermione began, instantly going into the lecture mode that Harry knew Ron would automatically tune out. He decided to intervene before things got too out of hand.

"Never mind, guys. Let's just get to the flash step technique."

He waved his hand in a precise movement and soon five shiny, little red crystals, no bigger than a thumbnail, were hovering over his hand.

"Hermione, there are no books about the flash step, but I think you'll like the alternative." He smiled at his bookish friend, who mildly glared at him for the rib at her. With another wave of his hand he attached the crystals to his friends' forehead.

"This might feel a bit strange, but bare with it." And with that, he activated the crystals.

Simultaneously the eyes of all his friends slammed shut and they became rigid in their seats. No more than ten seconds passed before all of them slumped back in their seats, gasping for breath. Subtly, Harry removed the now dull crystals. Having discharged the knowledge they contained, the shine was lost on the little things and they could be used again later.

"Now, the knowledge is in your heads. Take it easy for a bit, say fifteen to twenty minutes to let your brain process the knowledge and integrate it. After that, we'll start the practical bit." Following Harry's lead, the friends kept themselves occupied by watching the T.V Harry had installed in his room. Using his ability to manipulate magic directly, he had created an area in his room where there was little magic, allowing him to use electronic equipment. Using a satellite dish he could watch T.V. The purebloods among his friends were still amazed at the seemingly magical wonder. They lost track of time because of the program, so it was half an hour later before Harry announced they'd start practicing.

"Now, from my own experiences with this, the best way to learn is by playing tag. Just think of the move, and the information will come to you. You'll understand how it's done, but to actually do it is something else. The only way to get it is practise. So try to use the flash step while playing tag. Oh, and don't be surprised if your magic's gotten a boost by the time you're proficient in this."

Looking at his friends, they seemed eager, if uncertain. So he simply tagged Hermione, and flashed a little way away. Hermione reacted fast, tagged Ginny and ran away. Soon the friends were running after one another. Luna was the first who managed to flash. She was running after Ginny to tag her, when all of the sudden she was running in front of Ginny, startling the both of them. But Luna got her bearings pretty quickly, turned around and tagged Ginny before running off again. The next one to get it, surprisingly, was Ron. Although he flashed himself headfirst into a wall, knocking himself out cold. Luckily for him he wasn't anywhere near proficient with flashing, otherwise the speed that the move could call on would have splattered his head all over the wall. One by one, each of his friends managed to flash a short distance, no more than a few metres, but they did it.

By the time Harry called the game to a stop, his friends were exhausted, not used to this kind of usage of their magic. Their cores were near depletion, and they didn't have the considerable reserves Harry did. Shimmering them all back to his room, he presented them with a potion that partially filled their cores with neutral magical energy. It would mix with their unique personal magic and in a couple hours, it would become the same as their own magical energy. Personally, Harry was quite content with the progress they made. They'd be flashing fluently in no time. Then it would just be a matter of practise to master the flash step.

"Well, that was fun, wasn't it?" He rhetorically asked. Checking the time, he noticed that it had somehow become evening already, and noticing the hour, his stomach growled, letting him know it wanted food. As if on cue, Ron's stomach also growled, though considerably louder than Harry's. Ron laughed sheepishly at the noise coming from his belly.

"I'm hungry." He said quite unnecessarily. Harry shook his head, and shimmered to the kitchens to request some dinner for them. He made sure they got only what the Great Hall was being served, as a justification in case Hermione should protest at adding to the poor creature's slavery.

During the meal, he informed all of them about the m-mail system, and made each of them their own account and gave them a manual for it, just as he had given one to Ginny earlier that day. They all relaxed in the comfy chairs after the food - Ron, Neville and Ginny watching T.V, Hermione reading the manual of the m-mail, and Harry took the time to talk to Luna about their Tao gifts. He taught her some simple exercises to 'flex that magic muscle' as he called it. He also took the time to properly go over her magical core and evaluate where she stood, magic wise. He frowned when he discovered some strange flaws in her core, as well as her eyesight. For some reason these combined in her being able to see and yet not see the flows of magic.

"Luna, how long have you been able to see things others can't?"

Luna looked at Harry, surprised at the sudden question. Had it been anyone else, she would have assumed they were making fun of her, and her insistence about the existence of creatures nobody had heard of before. She trusted Harry however, and knew he would not have asked that question out of malice, but because he honestly was interested in knowing the answer.

"It started shortly after mother died. She had been working on a spell when I came into her lab and broke her concentration. She lost control of the spell and it caused a chain reaction in the magical energies that resulted in a powerful but localised explosion. I was caught by the violent air displacements and was thrown into a wall. I started seeing things shortly after I was released from St. Mungo's." All this was said in a quiet voice. She had made her peace with what happened some years ago, but she still felt the emotional weight whenever the subject came up.

Throughout the explanation, Harry had been nodding slowly, still checking his findings. He finished a few minutes later.

"Well, as far as I can discern, that magical explosion had an effect on both your magical growth and your physical growth. Though the physical part is localised around your eyes, the magical part is obstructing your magic. It's like a crude web's been wrapped around your magic flows. They still flow, but slower and with more difficulty than they should. I'm willing to bet that you had a lot of problems with learning spells in your first year." Luna nodded at that. She had had problems learning, but once she started getting the hang of it, those problems had seemed to disappear.

"If you trust me enough, I'll see about removing that web, and correcting your eyes, should you want them corrected. I'm not 100 percent sure what the physical changes, if any, will be, but it should make it as if you had grown up without the interference of that explosion. As for your magic, I think it's best to remove the web, but do it in steps, so you can get used to your magic at a moderate pace, instead of having to deal with the change all at once."

Luna thought about it, and decided that it most likely couldn't hurt to try. "All right, Harry, I trust you."

"Close your eyes." Harry put his hand on top of her closed eyes and reached for his magic. As gently as he could, he reached out to Luna with it, and slowly set about mending the damage done so many years ago. He repaired the physical injuries first, then set about correcting the magic channels in her eyes, as they were not as they should have been. Once he was done with that, he set a block around the newly repaired channels, to let them strengthen before letting magic flow through them. The block was designed to start letting a trickle of magic through after 48 hours. Once that trickle began the flow of magic, it would begin to dissolve and allow greater amounts of magic to flow, until eventually, the block would be totally gone. That would take about five days.

With the web-like obstruction, Harry prodded a bit and found he could manipulate the web. Studying how it connected to itself, Harry took a bit of his magic, and cut a tiny thread. The effect was a visible, at least to Harry, slackening in the tightness of the web. He set about finding other such threads and snipped a few more of them. The web was still in place and would not likely unravel on its own, but it was noticeably less tightly wrapped around Luna's magic. He figured it would allow her easier casting and control of her power. He would keep an eye on it, to make sure Luna didn't suffer any bad effects from it, but he didn't think she would. The web didn't appear harmful, only constrictive.

"How do you feel?" He asked as he removed his hand from her eyes. Luna opened them, and Harry was immediately struck by her chanced appearance. No longer were her eyes seemingly too big for her face, protruding from their sockets, but they sat as they should, nicely in her face. The difference was startling, especially when not expecting it.

"What's wrong?" Luna asked frightened by Harry's reaction. But Harry smiled at her. "Nothing bad Luna. In fact, you look very pretty." And he conjured a mirror for her to see what he was talking about. Luna looked at herself in the mirror, and drew in a deep breath, even as tears began to form in her eyes. She blinked a few times, to try and stop tears from falling and then turned to Harry.

"Thank you." She whispered, but she didn't succeed in stopping those tears from escaping.

"You're welcome my friend." He replied and sat with her for some time after, simply being close to her without the need to break the comfortable silence. Neither noticed the looks Hermione sent the pair once she saw how they were sitting. Longing, anger and uncertainty ran through her.

A clock on the wall suddenly chimed, and let them all know that it was already midnight. Stating that they all had classes tomorrow, aside from Harry, they all said their goodnights and went to their dorms to get some sleep.

------

Done for this chapter. Hope you liked it and if you did, please leave a review.


End file.
